Dutch gaming site InsideGamer has posted their preview of Fallout 3. Translated highlights:

Why then am I not ecstatic to now, finally, after all those years of messing around with the franchise, hear that a sequel is really in production? Well, call me mean or cynical, call me a hardcore Fallout fan, but I'm skeptical. Bethesda does not strike me as suited to do the job and so far they've only been reinforcing that opinion.

...

The majority of Fallout fans are not happy so far. The annoyance has gone so far that a large group of Fallout fans has started to make their own game which they dub the "true sequel." With their extraordinary weapons and slowmotion deathscenes, Bethesda is putting the emphasis heavily on action, which certainly was not the defining element of Fallout. With the teaser they showed that they can bring the atmosphere to life, and with that I hope they will listen more to the fans so that they can realize this quality in their game. Fall 2008 is long way away...

Read the whole thing (in Dutch) here.

Old time RPG journalist Desslock talks about Fallout 3 at the QTT forums. Highlights:

We do have a full preview as well, written by Dan Stapleton, supplemented by a related piece I contributed to, so there’s lots of info coming. I haven’t read the GameSpot piece (or Dan’s), so I don’t know how much they overlap — I’m also doing my column in the following issue on Fallout 3, as a sequel to my “memo to Bethesda” column a year or so ago, commenting on how I think things are looking on what I highlighted in the earlier column as the five most important “Fallout” features I was looking for in a sequel.

But if you have any additional questions on anything you’ve read anywhere - shoot - I’ll try to answer them now that I’m no longer prohibited from doing so. I’ve waited a year and a half to be able to talk about Fallout 3, so I’m more than happy to do so, heh.

I actually think people will be very happily surprised with the writing, and the characters, in Fallout 3, compared to Oblivion’s NPCs. The dialogue options are meaningful and different, not just a list of items that NPC can speak about, organized in a list where the only real choice is the order in which you hear the items. There’s only a few hundred NPCs (down from 1500 or so in Oblivion, and 2500 in Morrowind), so they’re much more fleshed out and unique — it also helps that there’s 30-40 different voice actors instead of just a handful in Oblivion. At least from what we’ve been shown, that stuff feels much more like Fallout 1/2 than Oblivion.

You also won’t be a jack of all trades, as in Oblivion - you have to make real choices that matter, and which dynamically change the fortunes of other characters. Aside from enhancing replayability, since you obviously won’t be able to do competing objectives, those choices deepen the roleplaying. To elaborate more on the “Megaton bomb quest” — when you arrive at that town, you can greet and be friendly with the sheriff. When you get the quest to potentially blow up the bomb, you can instead inform the sheriff that these dudes are trying to blow up the town. Or you can decide to blow up the town, but actually be unable to because you lack the mechanical skills to activate the bomb. Or you could just decide to blow the sheriff away when you meet him, in which case you’ll likely be attacked by his buddies when walking through the town. Or you could, after blowing him away, decide to put on his sheriff’s uniform, in which case some NPCs may attack you for killing the sheriff, but others may actually defer to you as the new sheriff. In short - meaningful options and real choices, and interesting characters to interact with - in that respect, I think Bethesda is appropriately emulating some of Fallout’s best and most distinctive features.

I also wouldn’t read anything negative into not being able to kill kids - it’s still definitely an M-rated game - there’s graphic violence, swearing, and “adult” topics like slavery, etc. — some other stuff that Bethesda isn’t revealing yet, involving mutation, and one tracked stat was “corpses eaten”, which makes me suspect there’ll be something similar to the Vampire-path in Oblivion/Morrowind, where you can get into doing some nasty stuff. It doesn’t feel sanitized. I also like the changes to the level-scaling, the use of SPECIAL and level-based character development as opposed to the use-based skill system of the Elder Scrolls games.

And more from today:

Other general impressions — while calling it “Oblivion with guns” is an oversimplication given some of the differences I’ve described above (and without also getting into the combat differences, etc.), I also think it’s a superficially apt description because it definitely looks like Oblivion, not like Fallout, because of the perspective. Sure, they’ve doled out the carrot of being able to view the game from an isometric perspective, but I’m skeptical that it’ll be in any way practical to do so. But the graphics look great - far better than I think they come across in still screenshots.

Areas of uncertainty - the VATS system looks really cool, and is visually spectacular, but I think we need to see more of the combat to judge how it feels in practice. I really like the VATS system, but I’m not sold on combat in general - there’s also a few pieces we haven’t seen at all, like melee combat (which is definitely an important part of the game). Also, everything in the demo occurred in relatively congested areas as well, with lots of rubble around blocking views, etc. - I’d like to get a better sense for how large the world feels, and looks, by seeing more expansive vistas, etc. (obviously one of the real strengths of Oblivion).

Other stuff I really like - the implementation of the PIP boy, and the ability to pick off radio broadcasts as you’re wandering the wasteland. The use of robots like Mr. Handy from the Fallout 1 cinematic - the nuke effects — and the overall atmosphere: the perspective gives you a better sense that you’re exploring a place that’s been blown apart and is messed up (suitably “postapocalyptic”) as opposed to a flat, top-down view. It’s actually kind of creepy — it’s one thing to see a giant castle in the background while playing Oblivion, and think that’s a cool, realistic view — it’s another to be walking around and then to look up at Washington D.C. buildings that have been fucked up, since we have a vested attachment to that setting.

Which is another question– ARE THERE companions of any sort?

There won’t be a party, or controllable companions (even the original Fallout games had AI-controlled companions), but there will be characters that fight alongside you. Expect Dogmeat or his doppelganger.

I think the plan is definitely to support modding. I did ask if Fallout 3 would ship with a construction kit like the past 2 Elder Scrolls games, and that hadn’t been decided yet. To be honest, that stuff doesn’t interest me personally, so I didn’t delve deeper into it.

Do you talk at all about the food/water/radiation poisoning thing that the game previews keep mentioning offhandedly, as if any game ever had made Tamagotchi mechanics fun? (and I’m excluding you people that play the Sims…if that’s what you call fun, I want no part of it. I understand those games from the perspective of a simulator or something, but that’s about it.)

I’m not certain what you mean about Tamagotchi mechanics. Water is basically a precious resource in the game, which you need to restore health (or stimpacks) — surface water is often irradiated, so if you’re going to drink it you’ll need radaway to avoid radiation effects. But it’s not an “Iolo-in-Ultima7″-style caretaking system.

Saxman - I think the inventory graphics, etc. we saw were placeholder, but it seemed pretty standard “press I to pull up inventory” style system, not Oblivion’s goofy journal tab system.

I’m hoping to god that they are more intelligent than Oblivion’s combat AI for companions, and not nearly as buggy (or as buggy/stupid as STALKER’s friendly AI). I really can’t take another battle where they rip me in half with the minigun because they’re too stupid to realize that I’m between them and their target.

We didn’t see any friendly fire incidents in the combat that was demonstrated, which was basically you and some Brotherhood of Steel guys against supermutants. They seemed intelligent enough to be fanned out - I don’t know if friendly fire is possible or was disabled, but it didn’t seem to be a factor.

Like I said, even though you won’t have a controllable party in the traditional sense, you can have allies and/or followers, to a greater degree than in Oblivion (and there were actually quite a few occasions in that game where you worked with other characters).

Do you know if they will be like Fallout 1/2 and have their own backstories, quests, and ways to change them over time? How about secret followers? Skynet in Fallout 2 was awesome.

Well, even in Oblivion there were characters who would tag along with you who had backstories and associated quests, but I think it’s overly optimistic to think much beyond that. Followers/allies on occasion may be more frequent or easier to obtain, but it’s a single character game, not a party-based game.

Can you complete the game using VATS exclusively, never aiming in real time? Is that a play style they’re balancing the game for?
Can you pause even if you have no AP, just to stop and think?

1. VATS action points are a limited resource, sort of like fatigue in Oblivion - I think they are still tweaking how fast it regenerates, etc.

2. Yes, definitely, and doing so will offer tactical advantages, since it allows your character to make a “perception” roll, which will give you additional information.

They already made the design choice to design the game around A) mostly real-time combat, B) in first-person, and C) without a controllable party or even companions. You’re already dealing with something that’s at least part-way to being a FPS/RPG hybrid rather than a pure RPG.
Because frankly, my reaction to VATS is that while it sounds -interesting- I’m somewhat skeptical about how it will work in practice. It seems too abstract to provide the enjoyment of good FPS combat, and too limited in its options to provide the depth of turn-based combat. Maybe that will change when they get around to producing some gameplay trailers and I can see it in action and in context. But right now I’m still somewhat skeptical.

Wow, that’s one awesome set of assumptions, extrapolations, faulty recollections, inaccurate comparisons and gross misinterpretations of everything that’s been said to date, haphazardly stitched together with the skepticism it sounds like you were predetermined to rationalize.

I think you’re right to hone in on the fact that there are a lot of questions surrounding how the combat will work in practice, and to note that the game is primarily designed around a first person perspective, but suggesting it’s “not a pure RPG” is ludicrous and completely counterintuitive given the statements of everyone who has actually seen the game.

As we reported on earlier, there are a few Fallout related items available for purchase on Xbox Marketplace. Killzig gives us the scoop:

the theme is pretty weak.

turns your guide background to the default silver/grey metallic drab look.

the following backgrounds for the following blades:

xbox live blade
capitol building concept art

games blade
first concept art, wasteland

media blade
slaver camp concept art

system blade
the carrier concept art

no screens, nothing new.

http://www.majornelson.com/default.aspx

Major Nelson has some more info as well as the price points.

the gamer pics are:

If your Xbox hasn't bitten the dust, you can snag them off of Marketplace.

Eurogamer has posted a very nice interview with Fallout 3 Lead Designer Emil Pagliarulo and Lead Producer Gavin Carter. Highlights:

On moral ambiguity:

Eurogamer: What about the moral dimension of Looking Glass games? Does that permeate into the Fallout development?

Emil Pagliarulo: It does. One of the mantras of the Thief games is a big grey area. Garrett is the ultimate anti-hero. That's really important you know. If you want to play like that, we want to support that. As Todd [Howard, executive producer] mentioned, we originally started supporting good, and supporting evil, and we realised how important neutral was, and how viable of a gameplay path it is, and how many great games like the original Thief supported that. That's really important to me.

On differences with Oblivion:

Gavin Carter: I feel like when people see it's first-person they're going to say, "Oh, there's Oblivion. It's Oblivion with guns." But honestly there's not a single thing we didn't look at and think, how are we going to do this for Fallout? We stripped out our entire character system. It's all Fallout now, with specials and experience, it's not skill based. The whole questing system is Fallout. There are different paths to all the quests, you can lock yourself out of quests. It's not like Oblivion where you can say, "I've just started in the Fighter's Guild, but I'm the Grey Fox." There's nothing in the game that we haven't looked at as its own thing.

On the setting:

Emil Pagliarulo: It's funny. Setting it in DC - it meant we knew what we needed to do. Originally we had it set on the West coast, but it just didn't work. Eventually I said, "Write what you know." So we have a location that doesn't appear all over the place in videogames. It's such a great place for a game. As for the story, I really like stories that are character-based, so how do those characters change throughout the game? So take the relationship with "my" father. He's my moral compass, a good guy, a noble character, so if I'm an evil bastard how does he react to me? If I blow up a town, what does he think?

On gameplay flexibility:

Gavin Carter: There's a lot more handling! We spend a lot of time talking about, "What if the player doesn't go where we want them? What if they stumble on this spot that we wanted for the end-game?" We have to handle that. We don't want to just lock them out and say, "You have to go down this path, that's the only way." We have to handle everything the player's going to do. We're experienced with that because we do it in Oblivion. But it doesn't have quite the same - well, it doesn't affect the game in the same way. A lot of our time has been spent planning for every single contingency that could possibly happen.

On people like Jack Thompson:

Gavin Carter: It's something I don't really worry about that much. It's probably going to be a Mature game, I don't see how it could possibly not be. It's not something where we're saying, "Let's go through the requirements for Mature and make sure we check all these boxes." It's nothing that we worry about. There is something we worry about regarding kids [The game features children, and it features guns, and it lets you make your choices. Whether they let you kill children is a decision they haven't made], and we could run into all sorts of problems there. It's something we need to think about, and find out, what's a good balance respecting what the game's about, and respecting the reality of the world today.

Read the whole thing here.

PS. Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days. I was on a mini vacation in NYC.

NMA has posted an indirect Q&A with Critical Hits editor Bartoneus. He elaborates on some things that didn't quite make it into their previews.

VATS. Ok, so I can pause to aim. Does that mean where I aim in RT doesn't matter, i.e. if I click on the head I'd still hit the torso, in RT? Also, when in VATS, can any actions be taken, or is it just cuing actions to happen?

Correct that VATS is a pause to aim idea, but from what I saw and heard at the event the Realtime play is like any other realtime game with shooting, if you aim and actually hit the head the same effects would apply as a called shot. Again, I'm not certain, and anything about that is conjecture based on the gameplay that was shown. From what I can tell, VATS is purely a system for queuing actions and that is all, we did not get to see if your inventory can be accessed/used while paused or if that would use action points also.

Shooting in RT slows down AP recharging. What about moving or other actions?

Not sure about this one, honestly in the demo Todd was pausing every time he really wanted to fight and only a few times did he have to run'n'gun in realtime and that seemed like just when a Mutant got the jump on him. He had modified the system a bit to help the demo along faster so I don't know how much of this was final mechanics and how much was for demonstration purposes.

Viewpoint. A bit unclear on drawing back the camera. Does it allow the camera to be drawn back far enough to be roughly the same bird's eye isometric as Fallout 1 had?

It looked (roughly) the same as the view from Fallout 1, and the graphics engine looked as if it stood up perfectly to the zooming in/out.

I attempted to stress it in my original commentary, but the entire graphical presentation of this game is stunning. Whether in first person view or over the shoulder you literally FEEL the destruction of the environment, the desolation, the abandoned ruins of small towns and junky shanty towns of the survivors. I seriously doubt many people, even die-hard purists who play the game, will end up using the isometric view very often because it simply looks too damn good in the other views (over the shoulder especially). The roleplaying aspects of the game will be improved incredibly by the immersive environments and feel of the interface. The first time a group of giant Rad Insects jump out at you and start chasing you, you'll begin to feel what I'm talking about (if not before that). If you don't think a franchise can stand a technical transition into first person and retain the qualities of the original, you clearly haven't played Metroid Prime.

Dialogue. Matt Miller caused a stir on this with his remark that "the tree is closer to Oblivion." So how does it look (visually, like Oblivion)? The PC has full lines or keywords? Any sign of long NPC replies? Any hint (probably too short a demo) of expansive branching dialogue?

This really tests my memory on the specifics of the demo shown, but I'll try my best to remember exactly. Looking back at Oblivion your choices in dialogue were things like "rumors, cathedral, Glarthir, etc." The visual look of dialogue is similar to Oblivion in how it zooms in on the NPC's face and where the text is displayed, but from the short bits we viewed it looks like PC respones will be phrases much like from Fallout 1, and typically it looked as if there were serious answers, angry answers, and funny answers all mixed in. The dialogue trees definitely looked like they had longer NPC replies also, and there was definitely a HINT of expansive / branching dialogue but really with the demo not enough was shown to say. From how Emil and Todd talked about it, I imagine the level of depth and detail shown throughout the demo expands to every part of the game.

I got a very good sense of "Fallout" from the dialogue shown, and strongly feel that this is one thing the people at Bethsoft are putting a lot of effort towards getting right.

Guns. Do they use schematics to construct?

One example we were given was the lunchbox explosive: you combine the lunchbox with some explosives (C4? something else?) and fill the rest of the lunchbox with bottle-caps and you'd have yourself a regular claymore shrapnel device. As far as schematics/instructions I don't know, but that makes the most sense.

Bobbleheads. How do they work?

This was not looked at in-depth for the demo, just mentioned in passing. It seems to be more of a side-game / additive element then a primary focus of the gameplay.

BoS. Was any explanation offered for their presence?

When Todd finally entered the city, he encountered a group of super mutants and was quickly saved by a unit of them (i believe that's who they were). I didn't catch if it mentioned exactly why they were there, but they help protect the player through what would otherwise be a tougher part of the city. Short answer: Not that I know of, no explanation yet.

Are bottle caps in as a currency?

As mentioned above, they were discussed as being used in the 'lunchbox explosive' so I figure they will be in the game as currency as well.

Thanks to Brother None for letting me know.

Pete Hines has been interviewed in a podcast by the official XBox blog Major Nelson. Highlights:

Tell us about Fallout [3] from where you're sitting, tell us what it's all about
Fallout 3 is a big post-nuclear role-playing game. It's our attempt at bringing back this beloved franchise that hasn't done anything in 10 years and our chance to do a very different type of role-playing game that we will hope folks will like.

As a gamer, what should I expect? Is it a shooter? We talked about it being a role playing game, how do you explain it?
First and foremost it is a roleplaying game. We make no bones about that. Yes it has guns, yes you shoot things rather than running up to them and hitting them with a sword (...)

On character creation and leveling up:

Unlike in Oblivion or any ES game (...) where you can really modify your base attributes a lot as the game goes along, Fallout 3 is much more about making some pretty tough choices early in the game that really don't get changed as you go along. So you're not going to be bumping up your strength skill every time you level up. As you go through, you're going to have to make some pretty tough choices about which attributes are important to you and they're going to affect the rest of the game. It's experience points based, it's not skillbased.

On weapons:

Right. We certainly have a lot of the weapons from the original Fallout games in and we also added in a bunch of new ones. So you have a whole range of stuff from the BB gun in the vault when you're 10 and first learn how to shoot, then there's hunting rifles and Chinese assault rifles and this really cool weapon called the Fatman, which is a portable mini nuclear bomb watcher. It's really insane when you see it go off.
One of the things that we found out with guns (...), which is much more difficult to do than with swords, is that when you don't have bullets or little mini-nukes to shoot then that weapon is essentially useless. So it's much easier to balance how much you're allowed to use a particular weapon or by not only degrading its condition over time but also how much ammo is available over time (...) You can have a great weapon like the Fatman, but if you're only going to have one nuke, you're not going to go running around nuking people.

On console development:

For our desk, the 360 is just a good base platform for us to work off, in terms of ease of design, the architecture and the hardware. We basically find that's a good one to use as a base platform, but we can technically show it on the PC or PS3 if we wanted. But the 360 is, y'know, you have to pick on the show a demo on. (...) We've got pretty good at modeling our system to run well on that (Xbox) and run well on everything.

Listen to the whole thing here. Pete's interview is at 39:07 to 59.20.

PC Gamer UK has previewed Fallout 3 in their latest magazine. Highlights:

The comparisons between this early scene and that of Oblivion won't be lost on Bethesda, developers of both games, nor their divided fan-base. Rarely can a game announcement have been met with such vitriol. The Fallout name is such a sacred cow that amers decried with spittle-flecked rants Bethesda's acquisition of the rights to develop a third in the series. Fears of trite quests, repetitious dialogue and a bland world ran rife among the online chatterati. But they haven't seen what I've seen.
(...)
"There's an undertone of pulp sci-fi adventure," says Todd of the Fallout world. "It's not Mad Max post-apocalyptic future, it's a 1950s tomorrow land...it's how they imagine the world would be."
(...)
[on character creation/tutorial] "We wanted people to experience something they've never had in a role-playing game before," explains Emil Pagliarulo, Fallout 3's Lead Designer and evidently its creative visionary. "In most games you start out at a certain point; you never get to develop your character through the course of his or her life. We wanted to show you what it's like to grow up in the Vault so we start at the point of your birth. You get to know the people in the Vault, including your dad."
(...)
[on selecting Liam Neeson] "We were daydreaming about who would be good as your father," says Todd. "We just thought Liam Neeson would be perfect... We asked him, and he said yes."
But isn't it a bit of a publicity stunt - especially as this was the first snippet of information released about the game? "We could have had a perfectly good voice actor who isn't famous, and I suppose there is a marketing thing to it," admits Todd. "But regardless, he's a seriously good actor. He understands the role completely and has an incredible professional attitude. (...)"
(...)
Emil again: "it's a shock when you find out your dad is missing, and the Overseer [the chief of the Vault] is pissed off. He thinks you had something to do with it and he sends his thugs after you. The Vault is no longer safe for you. In addition to you wanting to find your dad, you're under pressure to get out..."
(...)
Todd warms to the theme. "In Oblivion, we say, here's the good part of the game and here's the evil part. In Fallout we say, here's the situation. You deal with it in ways that feel natural to your character... Later on, we realised a lot of the quests we were making were morally grey, neither definably good nor evil. We asked, do they need to be clear? And decided, no, definitely not."
"We want people to agonise over things," adds Emil, a glint in his eye. "For things not to be clear."
It all sounds dangerously like actual roleplaying. And it's tied in with Fallout 3's character development system, which fans of the original will find happily familiar. The big difference between it and Oblivion's is that you will never become an all-round everyman in Fallout [3], skilled in most things.
(...)
Ah, the weapons. Drawing heavily from the original, we'll be reunited with a host of old friends; from the super sledgehammer, simple pistol and rifles like AK47-alikes, plasma guns and the monstrous Fat man (...) You'll occasionally find or be able to buy schematics for new and unusual toys which can then be built using parts scavenged from the world. The best example of this is the Rock-It-Launcher: a jerry-built projectile lobber that can fire rocks - or any junk you may have clogging up your inventory.
(...)
[On VATS] The VATS system is a reflection of the old Fallout targeting system, which allowed a very similar level of detail and strategic thought (...) Once your orders are selected [in paused mode], up to a maximum governed by your action points, real time continues, with your actions rewarded with slow-motion close-ups if you score a particularly ugly killing blow.
(...)
[sheriff Lucas Simms of Megaton] He's cautiously friendly, but warns you what'll happen if you misbehave in his town. A good man doing a tough job? Or a self-important egotist living out his cowboy dreams? (...) you'll start to realise there are hidden depths to many of Fallout 3's characters.
(...)
[on NPCs] I certainly didn't see anything repeated, anything out of character, or anything that broke the consistent, convincing atmosphere - all complaints that have been leveled at Bethesda's previous works. Lucas is a good example of what Bethesda are aiming to do with NPCs: make them more subtle, less obvious, more human.
(...)
[options on Megaton's quest] You could ignore him and keep pursuing your dad. You could say you'll do it, then rat him out to the sheriff. You could say you won't, then do it anyway, just to piss off everyone. The upshot is that, a couple of hours into the game, you could be standing on a rooftop watching a town and its inhabitants being atomised... or you could still be there, doing odd jobs and getting pally with the lunatic who worships the bomb as a god.
(...)
[side-bar text] A higher charisma score gives more chat options.

Gamespy has posted their preview of Fallout 3. Highlights:

On platform availability:

[Bethesda] demoed on the Xbox 360, though the game is slated for simultaneous release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

On quests in Vault 101:

While describing these early-game landmarks up until the opening of the Vault door, Howard commented that there are a multitude of quests inside the Vault itself, and actions you take when you're a ten-year-old do have some effect on how people treat you when you're older.

On the BOS and the Behemoth:

As the player fights more and more Super Mutants within the Metro, he or she eventually runs into a Brotherhood of Steel platoon known as "Lyon's Pride," led by Commander Lyon. He proceeds to chastise you for being a newbie in a combat zone, and lets you tag along with her platoon in order to survive. Pagliarulo is able to scavenge better equipment, such as a Chinese Assault Rifle in better condition, and fights alongside the friendly BOS AI. All goes well until they encounter a Behemoth: a twenty-foot tall mutant wielding a signpost as a club.

Read the whole thing here.

Thanks to Mori for pointing this out.

I've posted a bunch of high resolution (1280x720) screenshots in the gallery, as well as higher resolutions of some of the concept art. Check em out:

Shacknews has posted their preview of Fallout 3. Highlights:

On details of Ron Perlman's intro narrative:

"In Vault 101, noone ever enters, and noone ever leaves. It is here you were born, and it is here you will die." So speaks Ron Perlman, reprising his role as the series' intro narrator and prefacing one of the most fervently anticipated gaming experiences of the last decade. With the familiar line, "War... War never changes," Perlman once again recalls the events of the Great War that drove humanity into protected underground vaults and transformed the country into wasteland.

Todd Howard on continuity:

"We do follow the continuity of Fallout 1 and 2," promised Howard, "though obviously they're set in the West Coast and we're set in the East Coast. When we do games, we don't like people to feel that they need to play the previous ones. We like to have lots of nods, and have the lore make sense. So it's not a continuation of that story, but it does say that stuff all happens."

Brahmin are back!

Many of these [creatures] return from previous games--giant ants, brahmin, death squads, radscorpions, and more.

WTF. Groin shots are out. BULLSHIT.

Sadly, groin targeting has not returned for Fallout 3. The designers decided to keep the targetable areas to body parts that would have tangible effects when targeted--shooting a leg will cause the enemy to stumble, shooting out an arm might cause it to drop its gun. "You will no longer be able to punch a rat in the groin," Howard said.

Bottle caps are back:

Taking a Vault-Tec lunchbox and filling it with bottle caps and explosives creates an improvised, but deadly, shrapnel bomb.

More confirmation of isometric-esque perspective:

Now, third person mode can operate with a Resident Evil 4-like over-the-shoulder perspective, a pulled back camera in line with the old games, or anywhere in between.

On the Vault jumpsuit:

Howard showed off some concept art detailing the evolution of the iconic blue vault suit, of which you will be seeing a lot in third person mode. The team apparently went through hundreds of iterations, with changes down to the stitching in the pants, and the end result is very evocative of the original Fallout.

Megaton dialogue:

"That's fine, that's fine, just as long as we understand each other," responds [Mayor/Sheriff] Simms. "These are my people. This is my town. You so much as breathe wrong, I'm gonna fuckin' end you."

Read the whole thing here.

Kotaku has posted a nice list of facts that they garnered from the press event. They are as follows:

On Leveling - Characters will be able to reach up to level 20, with points towards stats being awarded every level, and perks awarded every two levels.

On Corpse Eating - The loading screen shows random statistics, one of which was Corpses Eaten. They would not tell us what that referred to. Sounds delightful though, doesn't it?

On the PC version - Windows Vista will not be required to play the game. The reason given being more display options available in DX9 over 10. I suspect the actual reason is much more colorful.

On Setting - The game takes place 30 years after Fallout two on the other side of the country. Washington DC will be represented on a small scale, though not accurately modeled...though on my way out of the event I heard Emil mention that a certain game studio's offices might wind up modeled int the game.

On Weapons - Create your own weapons by gathering resources from fallen foes. Weapons will deteriorate over time and with use, so maintaining your arms is a constant consideration.

On Nipples - Completely remodeled humans with detailed nipples. I don't know why they decided to focus on nipples, but I'm not going to argue. I get to type nipples, which makes me happy.

On Beginning the Game - Characters start off as babies, where their DNA is mapped to determine their looks. Then various flashbacks introduce new game concepts, until at the age of 19 your character is fully formed. As with Oblivion, exiting this area will pop up an option to keep your stats and such as they are or modify them.

On Titles & Karma - The karma system will be in place, and depending on their deeps a player can earn any number of displayable titles. Players can choose to either walk a neutral path or sway to the side of good and evil, with NPC reactions changing accordingly.

On Music - The company has licensed 20 songs from the 1940's that will played via an in-game radio station, complete with its own DJ. The radio will also be used to discover new areas, picking up signals as you approach bases and settlements.

On Difficulty Ramping - In certain areas the level of the creatures and challenges within with be fixed as soon as the character enters, giving players the chance to go back after they've leveled up and basically feel like Billy badass, as opposed to the game leveling with the character to provide constant challenge.

On Children - Children will be in the game, though no word on whether you can kill them or not. This was an actual Q&A question. An excellent follow up question would have been, "If you can kill children, can you eat their corpses too?"

On Story - The main storyline of the game will run around 20 hours, with side quests fleshing the total out to around 40. The game currently has 9-12 endings in place, and the devs seemed to suggest there could be even more down the line. The story is highly mutable, meaning you can make choices that destroy entire quest lines and or open new ones.

On NPCs - While you will not be able to form a party, you will be able to hire NPC mercenaries who will fight along side you much like the NPCs in Oblivion. The game features far fewer NPCs than Oblivion did, but with more AI options. The living, breathing world aspect is being looked at with great attention to detail. There are 30-40 different voices in the game, lessening the possibilities of hearing the same voices over and over as in Oblivion.

On Death - There are many different ways to die in the game, all based on hit locations and various other factors that provide for some truly surprising death scenes. They described it as Crash Mode in Burnout with body parts, which sounds utterly beautiful.

On Vehicles - No vehicles in the game.

On Online Play - Ditto. No online play.

On Weather - Weather will indeed be a factor in the game...expect dust storms and the like, as will a day & night cycle.

On Collectibles - There will be 21 collectible bobble head dolls in the game. Why? Because people love those bobbleheads, dammit.

Go here for the Kotaku article.

I didn't even realize it until now, but in addition to their hefty 4 page preview of Fallout 3, IGN video-interviewed Executive Producer Todd Howard. Here are some highlights that I have transcribed:

IGN: One thing you've done, though, that's sort of a radical departure, is change the perspective of the game. Instead of being a sort of isometric, tactical game, it's got a little more of a action kind of shooter presentation. Why did you decide to make that change?

Todd Howard: I mean, there's still some tactical stuff in it. It's really what excites us in terms of what's going to have the biggest impact to you when you're playing this game and you're this character. So that's the main reason for first person - is that, you know, I want you to touch the world and make it feel real, and I just think the emotion impact of that is much greater. But then, I mean, you can really pull the camera back in third person and play it that way if you want to get a better sense of your surroundings. So we've spent a lot of time on the third-person, over the shoulder stuff.
...
I think there's a difference between first person and action. I think people confuse them, whereas, you know what kind of behavior are you rewarding. Are you rewarding a person who's got really good reflexes, or you're just presenting the game that way? So for us, we, you know, try very hard - just like, that's how the game is presented, but it's not rewarding you you as a twitch player.

IGN: Having funs who are so rabid for the game is kind of a blessing and a curse, and reviving a franchise is always a little risky. Is there anything you're particularly worried about with this game or that you feel like "Wow, we're really taking a risk here. I wonder if it's gonna pay off."

Todd Howard: Umm...I think the combat system is a bit risky. I mean, it's one of those things where a lot of people might think the game is something it's not. They might get it and think they're getting a shooter, and then they're like "This isn't a shooter, I don't understand it." But that's there fault not mine, heh. Other things that are risky. I dunno..I think with anything it's very subjective. There are people that are gonna go "Oh I think that looks awesome" and people who'll go "That's not what I want." You know, at the end of the day, we just gotta do what excites us the most, and what we would really want to play. And, you know, we have lots of really strong opinons here on all sides of the fence. I guess my only concern is that people won't really get it for what it is, that they might confuse it with something on either side of the spectrum too much, and then when they buy it, they're let down in some way that we didn't expect.

Watch (or download) the whole thing here.

Kotaku has put up a nice piece which chronicles the press event and gives their impressions of Fallout 3. Highlights:

Breakfast!

Bethesda Softworks' offices are located in Rockville, Maryland, Money Magazine's number 26th best place to live in America. More importantly it is the country's number one place to develop Fallout 3, which is of course why we were there that morning. After having our badges checked we were escorted downstairs to the main lobby, where a receptionist's station lined with an impressive array of awards greeted us. Soon we were ushered through the offices to a newly built auditorium, where everyone found their seats and got settled in. Then they mentioned breakfast was available in the cafeteria and everyone got up again, like we were part of some bizarre hive mind. After donuts and coffee we tried the whole auditorium thing again.

On the hilarity of violence (yeah, not really sure how funny it is, but ok):

They spent lots of time pouring over reviews of the first two games and figuring out what they wanted in this one. The tone of the first game without the over the top self-awareness and adult of the second, with plenty of violence...in fact, that was one of the running themes throughout the demonstration. "Violence done well is fucking hilarious."

Something more than Oblivion with Guns?

As the character stepped out into the surface world the screen flared with light and several members of the audience shielded their eyes reflexively. It was just a brief moment, but right then I felt this game was going to be something much more than The Elder Scrolls: Fallout.

This, however, is more in the lines of comical:

Coming across a small settlement, Howard demonstrated the branching dialog system, making the audience chuckle by calling the friendly town sheriff a dick.

Lunchroom talk:

"It's The Elder Scrolls: Fallout!"
"The game has to evolve. They can't just make Fallout 1 again."
"You going to eat that cookie?" - They had really good cookies.
"Why are they proudly displaying a Star Trek: Armada poster?"
"What happened to Rogue Trooper?"

Read the whole thing here. Be sure to check out the nice photo gallery there too. You can see the auditorium where the game was previewed, as well as pics of Todd, Emil, and the infamous Bloody Mess cake.

Looks like Bethesda served a pretty fancy 3D Vaultboy cake, as well as an equally fancy 2D cake for their press event. Here are the pics! (second one courtesy of Voodoo Extreme)

Bloody mess cake! Scrumptous, I'm sure.

EDIT: Kotaku has posted a nice assortment of pictures of the cake. And apparently:

One attending press member was so enraptured they were heard to exclaim, "I want to taste Vault Boy in my mouth." Now that's love right there.