Fallout 3 - Interview @ Next Gen

Next Gen has an interview in article format with Bethsoft's Pete Hines. It's titled Facing Fallout but meanders around some general territory:

Howard says he wants the team to keep an open mind about what it’s trying to achieve. “We’re fortunate in that people are allowing us to make these big virtual crazy games. No feature is off limits, right? It’s a role-playing game and you do what you want, so almost anything we think of we have an avenue to put into our kind of game.

“All of us in the office play a lot of games. So the first thing is we make them for ourselves. People here tend to try and entertain each other. There are more ideas than we can ever possibly do every week. Videogames are absolutely the most energizing creative thing you can ever work on. You have this technology magic and then you have story telling and gameplay. It’s all open. You can get motivation from everything; just from walking around looking at things and going ‘oh that’s really neat’.

Click to expand...

More information.

Once again an interview that says nothing. A lot of "We're big game fans" "Love that fallout world" ect... But we've heard this before, tell us something new please I don't care if it is Oblivion with guns I just want to know something about the actual game. Biggest question I would loved answered is "Is it open ended or will there be an actual story with meaningful dialogue?" That's all I really care about in any RPG is if the story is well written or am I just wandering around killing things.

Skav

I agree. All of the rhetoric is basically meaningles. "We're making the game as if we made the first two games". Gee, that sure means a lot.

Unfortuantly I think it will be as with Oblivion, and we have to wait until after *random magazine* has it's exclusive preview/interview report on it.

Anything would be good though, even if it doesn't directly deal with gameplay mechanics.

Developers = Politicians

I trust developers even less then politicians. All they need to do is to lie, lie, lie until release - Then, they don't have to say anything afterwards. At least politicians can be held accountable (Your Country May Vary).

"Yeah, sure, we're keeping it real for Fallout 3. Turn-based? You betcha. Isometric? You read our mind. Yup."

After the truth is revealed...

"No, you mis-interpreted us. We never specifically mentioned turn-based or isometric gameplay. We mentioned that we could fit it in if we had the time or budget but we wanted to release a high-quality product & those qualities simply weren't present to integrate those features in. There's a possibility, though, of us re-visiting those features in an expansion, should the product be successful."

Or, they use the "You Really Wanted It All Along" tactic -

"Look, the public has spoken - Rope arrows are passe! Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt & put it in the closet. REAL FANS are yearning for something new. They're yearning for a physicality that you just can't get with a rope arrow. They want to actually CLIMB the wall, with their HANDS. We're simply responding to that demand with this product."

"The reality is that smaller levels ARE bigger levels. By enveloping the player in an immersive environment, you create a space larger then any physicality that a 'larger level' can possibly provide. This has always been the gameplaying experience that we have aimed for in our prior releases & we are thrilled that we can now offer our original vision in this product."

Ugh. Until the game media grows a pair & takes these developers to task, they'll just continue to lie their *sses off all they want with impunity.

Agreed. Most of the stuff devs wrote prior the oblivion was huge load of bs. And radeon ai must have been the biggest hoax since ps 2's emotion engine.

I wish I was Bethesda.

Me: "Y'know, I'm really interested in doing something with Scarlett Johanson."
(six months later the business people will hand her over saying ‘have fun')