E3 Previews - Fable 2 and Fallout 3

While most of the games at the show are coming out this Holiday season, some are tantalizing glimpses of 2008. Two titles that are (most likely) coming out next year also happen to be highly anticipated follow-ups to RPGs. Bethesda's Fallout 3 has been getting the bulk of the press between the two, as the post-apocalyptic title recaptures the interest of veteran gamers looking for some nostalgia. Part Oblivion, part retro, part humor, and all Fallout , expectations still seem to be high despite the lack of hands-on experiences. Fable 2 has been an equally anticipated roleplaying title, as Peter Molyneux's promise to make us love NPCs stands as a challenge to the Lionhead team. After much discussion of other gameplay elements, the focus of presentations at this year's E3 appears to be on 'one button combat': "Imagine satisfying combat with just one button. Every movement of your weapon, every parry, thrust, and counter is controlled with a single button ... Swiping away at enemies was simple enough by just mashing away at the button, hearkening back to the simple sword combat of a game like Prince of Persia. There was far more depth to take advantage of, however. Holding down the button took a defensive stance, and parried incoming blows from all directions. That classic Hollywood swordfighting move, the behind the back parry was a piece of cake to pull off. More complex counter moves, ripostes and finishers are more difficult to pull off, requiring specific timing, but once again, it's all accomplished with a single button."

Single button combat isn't so great.

[RyanFenton]

Odin Sphere implements what they speak of (though in a mostly-2d world), with button-presser-for-combos, and button-holds-for-defense approach for many of the characters. It doesn't really work that well at all. It's much better to be able to guard-cancel with another button, or just get out of the way, rather than risk being there when a guard-breaking attack can get you, just so you can be closer once the attack ends. Not that guarding itself is always bad, but the flow of having to wait with a button down for guards to 'kick in' just isn't that useful, and doesn't end up intuitive, even with practice.

Ryan Fenton

Would like to see more of Fable 2

[alvinrod]

The original Fable received a lot of hype and was the major driving factor in getting me to purchase an Xbox, but after playing it I was horribly disappointed. It was an alright game on its own, but the massive amount of hype and the fact that for every cool thing you could do in the game there were at least two more that you thought you should be able to do, but couldn't, managed to leave a sour taste in my mouth.

I like second chances though and with more powerful hardware, the Xbox 360 might help bring some of the missing features in the first game to the sequel. The only problems I'm seeing so far is that Molyneux seems to be making grand claims again and I'm wondering if they'll pan out or I'll just be left disappointed again. It's nice to hear that the game is looking good, but with the hardware capabilities of the Xbox 360 any game can look good if it wants to look good. He really needs to worry less about the looks and more about making sure there's plenty of feature rich gameplay. You can always spend the last few months touching up the graphics, but it's a real pain in the ass to make sure last minute feataure additions work smoothly.

I'm a little leery after the last go-around, but I'm still hopeful that Fable 2 shapes up into an excellent game. Maybe it will be the game that motivates me to go out and buy an Xbox 360.

Re:Would like to see more of Fable 2

[Cadallin]

Peter Molyneux is great at coming up with ideas, not so good at implementation. This cycle has been repeated multiple times. As such, I've learned to just ignore the hype. Fable was pretty fun (certainly an adequate action/adventure/rpg thing) if you came into it like I did, ignoring the hype and hoping for a fun game.

In a broader sense though, I think that gaming really suffers from a lack of Strong AI. Developers have been trying to do what Molyneux hyped up for "Black & White" since at least the early '90's. There was an early preview of a medieval RPG in CGW, whose name I can't remember, but they were hoping to have really deep and complex NPCs, and a dynamic political Arthurian environment that behaved in a natural way, with Romance, and Fights, and the whole shebang (on 486's no less!) Needless to say, they ran into some heavy problems and the project died, never to see the light of day. Can you imagine the kinds of games possible with Strong (or even strong-ish) AI? Games with the real, equivalent of a GM behind them? Stuff that would make Neverwinter Nights with its limited human GM tools look like the first Wizardry from 1980? Truly dynamic scenarios and rewards?

Re:

[Cadallin]

Aw come on? nobody has anything to reply with? Just a "yep, that's interesting, I probably agree with that." I'm not even going to get a complaint that using an AI far more capable than anything available today to run a game of D&D (or equivalent) is extremely frivolous?

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[Perky_Goth]

Visuals sell, what else is there to say?
At any rate, with a market of mostly casual gamers, what's the point in spending money on AI when normal gamers get beat up on easy as is? (It's a real downer to realize that I'm dumb, though :) )

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[jchenx]

A lot of the talk in Fable 2 is actually about the gameplay elements, not so much that it looks good. (It does, but that's not really the point)

Personally, I'm interested in the dog element of the game. Having grown up with a German Shepard as a kid, and knowing how attached you can get to pets, I'm digging a lot what Molyneux discussed at the last Fable 2 showing. It definitely adds to the immersiveness of the game, if you start growing attached to your dog. (Of course, if you've never grown up around pets

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[careykohl]

It's a Peter Molyneux game.... the final version of the dog won't be anything like what he claims it is. It will still be kinda fun to play around with for about fifteen minutes when it will suddenly do nothing but crap all over the place no matter what commands you give it. And it won't be to long after that until you figure out you can complete the game much easier by just ignoring the stupid thing.

if only

[Anonymous Coward]

women were that easy to pleasure. i mean think about it, 1 repetitive motion on a little button.

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[ShecoDu]

I find your ideas very interesting and would like to suscribe to your newsletter.

A few tips

[spun]

Funny. Women have several different buttons, though, and they work differently on different women. The minor buttons such as the neck, the lips, the ears, behind the knees, and the elbows work similarly on most women. The major buttons work quite differently. Many like strong pressure on the clit, but just as many don't. It usually depends on how exposed it is. Women with a big clitoral hood have more sensitive clits than women with a large or exposed clit.

Same thing with the nipples: some like really hard,

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[drewmca]

Why oh why can't I moderate this "Creepy", slashdot?

Happy

[Zenephis]

Probably the best news on the Fallout 3 front is that the camera will enable you to play the game in the classic isometric view as well as in first person view. Too bad the turn based gameplay is gone.

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[Zenephis]

It was pulled from an interview that Neogaf did with Bethesda's Emil Pagliarulo, Todd Howard, and Pete Hines during their Fallout 3 demonstration at E3.

How far can camera zoom out? Pretty much full control over camera and can get into an iso/top-down view.

The link to the full interview is here [neogaf.com].

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[bulled]

Though I cringe every time someone uses the word Oblivion to describe the new Fallout. Sandbox or not, if the quests in Fallout are as terribly linear as Oblivion they will have failed the Fallout fans.

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[bulled]

I own Oblivion and SI, and I enjoyed them. You, however, have obviously never played the Fallout series, in comparison Oblivion is terribly linear. Sure you can name a handful of quests that have 2 or 3 ways to complete them but they are: 1. not connected to the main story or 2, the choices you make have no impact on the world outside of the individual quest.
The main story line had exactly one path through it which is not a short coming that Fallout or several other great RPGs suffer.
And hundreds of q

Re:Happy

[argStyopa]

I understand your point, but I wonder...if you want isometric view, if you want the original music, if you want the same general storyline, if you want sprites instead of 3d....wouldn't it just make more sense to reload and play Fallout TWO again? (Or one?)

It seems like the very vocal "Fallout" fanbase just wants the exact same game as last time. It was a great game, don't get me wrong, but its greatness is as much a result of its time & place & the players' age/expectations as a result of the particular display technology.

It's very much like all the people that went & saw Star Wars in whatever the most recent re-release was. It wasn't nearly as jaw dropping a spectacle because:
- effects have gotten better
- paradigms that were established in the original have now become cliche
- you're not the starry-eyed 12 year old you were back then, and never will be again.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the very vocal "Fallout" fanbase just wants the exact same game as last time.

Nah, Fallout fans want a game designed for PCs rather than one designed for Xbox.

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[TheBlackSwordsman]

Probably the best news on the Fallout 3 front is that the camera will enable you to play the game in the classic isometric view as well as in first person view.

You'd think this might be a good thing, but it's little more than Bethesda throwing old-school Fallout fans a bone. And not a particularly meaty bone, as the iso viewpoint cannot be used for combat, and I don't see it working very well when you're indoors. In other words, it's useless.

As you said, the turn-based combat is gone, and that's probably th

Fable 2, Yes!

[morari]

I just recently played through Fable: The Lost Chapters on my PC and thought that it was a rather good game. I know it received a lot of bad press when it was released for failing to live up to the hype. There were really only a few big problems I had with it. These included levels that were too linear and lacked a real sense of exploration, your actions not having as big of an impact on the world as it seems it could have, and the super thick plot that takes over the quaint and entertaining story once you

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[default luser]

My biggest complaint with Fable was, being evil didn't really do anything. Sure, people hateed you and scowled in your general direction, but the quests themselves were virtually the same, so there were really no advantages/disadvantages to being a pure evil/good character.

I had fun for about two hours being evil to people, but after I realized it has no effect on the game at-large, I really didn't care anymore. If I'd wanted to just play a sandbox game, I'd have played The Sims.

Re:Fable 2, Yes! or the Virtues of Evil

[WillAffleckUW]

My biggest complaint with Fable was, being evil didn't really do anything. Sure, people hateed you and scowled in your general direction, but the quests themselves were virtually the same, so there were really no advantages/disadvantages to being a pure evil/good character.

I had fun for about two hours being evil to people, but after I realized it has no effect on the game at-large, I really didn't care anymore. If I'd wanted to just play a sandbox game, I'd have played The Sims.

Exactly. The red smoke and h

Can't Wait to play Fable II on my Wii

[WillAffleckUW]

along with Duke Nukem and Spore!

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[hunterkll]

erasing a fucked up mod i did to a post above... goddamnit

Just my opinion....

[dyslexicbunny]

Aren't these more teasers rather than previews? Sure I'm excited to see Fallout 3 footage but honestly, these things seem like scripted presentations that they want to use to show off something in the games instead of a close to finished product.

Perhaps I'm just being picky on nomenclature but I see previews as something in the beta tests or a version that's almost ready for consumption. Even almost ready to send off for reviewers. On the other hand, teasers are things like this where they show off some features in the game or provide insight into the game's story and concepts.

In short: Teasers create interest and build hype. Previews show off ready product (or almost) and let people know they are almost ready for you.

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[Uthic]

Well that's what E3's for I guess. Hype and interest.

Part Oblivion... ...all Fallout

[GeneJoker]

Does not compute :(