The July issue of the Polish PSX Extreme magazine has a Fallout 3 preview, based on the same London demo as all other recent previews in Polish press. Some bits:
* At age 16 we select our perks - e.g. Bloody Mess or Good Speaker. Pete didn't want to say what the rest of the perks will be.
* No romances.
* We will often have problems with lack of clean water or food. The Geiger counter will sound pretty often. Hines says that when he plays the alpha at home, he is pretty much never fully healed - he's always either wounded or radiated.
* Eating food is not mandatory, but food increases your HP. However, you should look out for radiated food. Sometimes you will have to wonder whether you should eat radiated food, even with low HP, since the consequences of radiation are even worse.
* Radiation is a much bigger problem in FO3 than in previous games. It drastically decreases your combat abilities, and can even lower your skills permanently.
* There will be around 50 different weapons.
* While we'll be able to find e.g. Power Armors early on, they will be in pretty bad condition (low CND bar) and will require extensive repairs or will get broken quickly.
* The role of Charisma is lower than in previous games, Fallout 3 relies on combat much more than FO1 and FO2. However, we'll be able to use stealth throughout most of the game.
* Many weapons can be constructed based on schematics.
* If you have your weapon on your shoulder, you can run and the NPCs are not aggressive. If you equip it, you can only walk.
* Jumping has no influence on the combat system, it's just for avoiding some obstacles.
* There is no gambling, you cannot participate in slaver raids nor guard caravans.
* No locations are randomly generated. However, depending on which way you'll head, some scripted events will appear there, e.g. you will encounter Dogmeat early on regardless of where you go.
The Polish CD-Action magazine was invited to Bethesda headquarters for a hands-on preview of Fallout 3. A summary:
* They had a predefined character - a strong male.
* The game can be saved at any moment, and saving is pretty quick.
* We leave the Vault with a PipBoy, a pistol, some ammo and a holotape with a message from the father.
* Ammo is scarce and it's best to fight weaker opponents hand to hand.
* They go to Megaton by following a sign in Springvale showing the way to the town.
* In Springvale, the Sputnik Eyebot was hovering over the street, broadcasting a speech of the Enclave president.
* Megaton looks like a Wild West town. We have a good sheriff, and an evil saloon owner. The saloon has a prostitute, but she tells the player character that he's too young to use her services.
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* We are informed that our Karma has changed after the fact. We also don't see any numbers - we just see e.g. a Vault Boy with angel wings and a "Saint" description.
* If we are caught trying to steal something, the person we tried to rob will first chase us, trying to recover his property. He won't be happy, but usually it won't end with a shootout, unless we already have a bad reputation. Well, it was enough to cause some trouble in Megaton for everyone to turn against us. What then? We can try putting our weapon down - if we didn't kill anyone, the situation will calm down.
* If we, however, do have blood on our hands already, the best way out is to quickly evacuate. Fortunately, a return is possible. After a few days the emotions drop down, and entering the town does not end with bloodshed. But still, people will know about our deeds and if we cause trouble again, they won't give us the benefit of a doubt this time.
* At first glance, it looked like they'd wander around aimlessly. But only at first glance, thanks to the compass. Directions where we can find something interesting are marked with little triangles. We'll learn what it is when we get there (it can be a school taken over by bandits, a cinema with car wrecks, a baseball pitch with dead bodies hanging from the fence, a small settlement at an overpass or a normal town). The compass can also show the place where we have a quest to do or a navigation point we put on the map ourselves.
* You use stimpaks on specific parts of the body, as hit points are divided among them.
* When throwing grenades and during hand-to-hand combat, while you can use V.A.T.S., you can't aim at specific parts of the body.
* Choice of gender has been marginalized and its importance will be minimal.
* Lots of blood and profanity.
* Body parts can be disintegrated or vaporized, depending on the weapon.
* The PC version has the same interface as the X360 one, but adjusted to the use of mouse and keyboard. It works much better than Oblivion's.
* You can assign hotkeys to items - e.g. weapons or stimpaks.
* Even with standard settings, the game looks better on the PC than on the 360 - better textures and longer line of sight.
* The lockpicking minigame is similar to the one from the Thief games.
