Fallout: New Vegas : It's Anti-Materiel. Not Material.

[You, sir, name?]

Due for release in late October. Same engine as Fallout 3, but developed by Obsidian instead of Bethesda.

So who is stoked? I know I am.

Oh, hi, ST here. I changed the title because I don't want to keep correcting your spelling.

Materiel (from the French "matériel" for equipment or hardware, related to the word material) is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management.

It's an Anti-materiel rifle. Because it's mean to shoot armored transports, fuel supplies, and other lightly armored vehicles and resources. And kill them. Dead. Well, as dead as an inanimate machine or object can be.

-ST

[Jessica]

Well, I'm stoked. Yay for obsidian!

Hope it's a good game. Have it pre-ordered already.

[Xanthir]

I'm stoked. Woo!

I need to preorder it.

[Vapour]

I'm so getting this.

Really enjoyed Fallout 3, even went as far to buy all the DLC.

Shame I haven't played the other Fallouts

[JayDee]

I'll certainly be checking it out. My confidence that it will be more of what I liked about Fallout 3 and less of what I didn't is greater than zero.

Shame I haven't played the other Fallouts

This is a really easy thing to fix, you know.

[Vapour]

I'll check that out tonight

<3

[Vaniver]

Preordered this a while back. Not sure what to expect- hopefully it'll be a lot better than just New Reno on a bigger scale, but that might not be all that bad.

[Xanthir]

New Reno was my favorite area in all of Fallout 2, and I would always beeline for it straight out of Arroyo. I have never once played Fallout 2 in the "suggested" story path.

[Mumpy]

I'm seriously looking forward to seeing how hard "Hardcore mode" is really gonna be, thirst n crap like that, *awesome*.

[jahwn lemonjello]

I loved Fallout 3. I did it to death and beat every expansion pack and it's still fun. I preordered New Vegas; It's going to rock. The hardcore mode sounds like it will be a fun challenge, as long as it doesn't get too annoying.

[wst]

I'm still going through my first playthrough of FO3, I went on a holiday for a month and completely lost the flow of the game for a few days when I restarted playing it last week, from where I'd got to. New Vegas looks good, but like my copy of FO3, I will probably end up getting it form the preowneds in GAME, after I've finished this and all the DLC. And I'll hopefully never stop picking up FO3 anyway, to try different characters and approaches...

[Xanthir]

I'm seriously looking forward to seeing how hard "Hardcore mode" is really gonna be, thirst n crap like that, *awesome*.

My fourth playthrough, I tried to do a voluntary hardcore game. I eventually just got sloppy, though, and then dropped it. It was a lot of fun doing so, though! Also fun trying to act like someone who really was scared for their life and would sneak or run away from threats rather than coolly taking sight at their head.

[Mumpy]

My fourth playthrough, I tried to do a voluntary hardcore game. I eventually just got sloppy, though, and then dropped it. It was a lot of fun doing so, though! Also fun trying to act like someone who really was scared for their life and would sneak or run away from threats rather than coolly taking sight at their head.

Of fallout 3? the best way to make that game hardcore is to restrict yourself in terms of weapons. Trying to only use melee weapons and grenades is immense fun, if a little tricky against serious numbers of enemies.

[Vapour]

My fourth playthrough, I tried to do a voluntary hardcore game. I eventually just got sloppy, though, and then dropped it. It was a lot of fun doing so, though! Also fun trying to act like someone who really was scared for their life and would sneak or run away from threats rather than coolly taking sight at their head.

Of fallout 3? the best way to make that game hardcore is to restrict yourself in terms of weapons. Trying to only use melee weapons and grenades is immense fun, if a little tricky against serious numbers of enemies.

The deathclaws.

However, if you could kill one and make the deathclaw weapon.

That would certainly help.

[SecondTalon]

Re: Hardcore Modes. The Mantis Imperative is a couple of different mods put together, one of which completely changes healing. Stimpaks no longer restore limbs, you have to use things like medical braces, leather belts and compresses along with stimpaks, and healing itself is now a whole lot slower - everything is either health over time (usually 10-15 seconds) or only heals you after X amount of time has passed (I think 12 seconds). Oh, and sleeping doesn't heal limbs either.

That completely changes things, as when you have two health bars left, no AP and see a grenade coming in, you cannot pause combat and spam stimpaks to get you back to full and probably survive the grenade. No, you just die and reload from a save and then don't put yourself in a position where that'll happen.

[Jessica]

Huh. That sounds like fun actually! Very cool, Sexy.

I'm still enjoying playing Fallout 3. I picked up the DLC and now I'm just exploring Washington (I just entered the capitol building). Though, the DLC isn't really as good as the original game. Or maybe that's just what I've played. Played mothership zeta and operation: Anchorage.

So, yeah. Just playing around in the world for now, then I'll tackle another DLC. Not sure which one to do next.

[pseudoidiot]

Broken Steel is nice if just for the extra levels and new perks. I'd say Broken Steel & Point Lookout were my two favorites.

[Mumpy]

Broken steel is my favourite DLC, but that's because of the extended level cap. I love being 100 skill on nearly everything. Also, Re: deathclaws, bottlecap mines will do them in, especially with Chinese stealth armour help. Combine that with a stealth boy, and your spotted level rarely goes above caution. It's aiming with grenades that's difficult, because vats isn't great past a certain range. I hope New Vegas has something similar to the stealth armour, as it was easily the most useful thing to have.

And woa, those mods sound like a ridiculously hard game. I think delayed healing is something that's going to happen in New Vegas too.

[SecondTalon]

Yeah, the entire Mantis rebalancing mods make the whole game much harder and less superheroic. Not ridiculously so, though.

[Vapour]

The stealth armour was fantastic, but a bitch to repair if I remember rightly, could only use officer armour or something.

I don't like the Alien DLC, Mothership Zeta?

This is mostly due to the fact I went to do it with Dogmeat and my Super mutant companion and about halfway through the campaign. I got a message saying Dogmeat had died

Luckily, I had the puppy skill, so I didn't lose the dog.
The original Dogmeat was cooler though.

[Jessica]

Agreed. I miss my dog.

I need to get him back. to vault 101!

[SecondTalon]

Wait, you got hit wearing the stealth armor?

[Mumpy]

I always forgot to swap to heavier armour after I got spotted. CSA can be repaired by Recon armour which Moira sometimes sells, and they sell it at the citadel, after you unlock that. The gauss rifle is a bitch to repair properly though. I have to use the point lookout repair glitch, as I don't have mother ship zeta.

[Xeio]

Bah, same engine? But that means the same crappy hard-coded-you-couldn't-change-this-to-save-your-life keyboard layout (and by that, I mean I have to type in qwerty to use the console, *sadness*).

[Jessica]

Yeah... the non-changeable controls were a bitch until I finally got used to them.

Also, whenever I have to repair things that I don't have handy, I just go talk to my trader friends whom I funded up the wazoo, and they'll repair it.

It's not like I'm wanting for money or anything...

[Mumpy]

True, but in point lookout, there's a man who's got a red jumpsuit on, I forgot his name, he's out in the middle of the swamp somewhere. Anyway, his jumpsuit gives him +5 repair every time you visit him, it's not supposed to be cumulative, but for some reason it is (on Xbox at least). This means that if you fast travel to and from him a few times and he can repair even better than crazy wolfgang.

Oh god, I walked into a shop today, and they were playing the Inkspots "I don't want to set the world on fire", it was all I could do not to sing along.

[Jessica]

That's pretty awesome, mumpy

[SecondTalon]

I always forgot to swap to heavier armour after I got spotted.

You.. got spotted?

Huh.

And yeah, the Point Lookout guy has that bug in the PC version. It's easy enough to fix (requires moving him slightly in G.E.C.K) but.. why would you?

[Mumpy]

You don't get spotted? Even with 100 sneak and Chinese stealth armour they notice me quite a lot. Especially the mutated people in point lookout, they must have ridiculous perception.

I never do take silent running as a perk though, that might not help. Also when you start shooting, unless you use the Infiltrator, people are definitely gonna find you.

[Vapour]

Wait, you got hit wearing the stealth armor?

I'd get cocky and use melee, the katana from Mothership Zeta.
If there were more then one, then they would usually get a few hits on me before I could run off etc.

[SecondTalon]

You don't get spotted? Even with 100 sneak and Chinese stealth armour they notice me quite a lot. Especially the mutated people in point lookout, they must have ridiculous perception.

I never do take silent running as a perk though, that might not help. Also when you start shooting, unless you use the Infiltrator, people are definitely gonna find you.

Yeah, Silent Running + 100 Sneak + Stealth Armor = Alllllllmost as good as 100% Chameleon in Oblivion. Probably close to the 90% mark. Couple that with a Sniper Rifle of some description, and you get to watch Raiders or Super Mutants or what have you freak out as their companions start dropping like flies.

The bastards in Point Lookout take too many shots, so by the time I drop two of them in a 3 man group, the last one's on me. But that's when I reach for my revolver....

[Vapour]

Man, Fallout is awesome.

[Chen]

Any word on them revamping the skill system? I liked the old fallout skill system where you were capped to something ridiculously high like 300 in each skill. I didn't like the fact that at level 20 I could max out a weapon skill (or two) AND all the utility skills. Made all the characters seem very similar in the end. Also made a lot of gear pretty obsolete since a piece of armor that increased Small arms was pointless once I hit 100 small arms.

[You, sir, name?]

Any word on them revamping the skill system? I liked the old fallout skill system where you were capped to something ridiculously high like 300 in each skill. I didn't like the fact that at level 20 I could max out a weapon skill (or two) AND all the utility skills. Made all the characters seem very similar in the end. Also made a lot of gear pretty obsolete since a piece of armor that increased Small arms was pointless once I hit 100 small arms.

I would very much like to see a return to the old system as well. The new one felt very Oblivion where you were expected to have max stats in everything and run around like some sort of demigod.

[Vapour]

I would very much like to see a return to the old system as well. The new one felt very Oblivion where you were expected to have max stats in everything and run around like some sort of demigod.

But, but. I do that anyway!

[Drumheller769]

Question, since I have only briefly played the original Fallout, how does Fallout 3 compare to WOW, or Neverwinter Nights for being able to customize the look and feel of your character, pick abilities/spells and the things your character can do, i.e. crafting, gathering, or widget utilizing?

[wst]

I'm still going through my first playthrough of FO3, I went on a holiday for a month and completely lost the flow of the game for a few days when I restarted playing it last week, from where I'd got to. New Vegas looks good, but like my copy of FO3, I will probably end up getting it form the preowneds in GAME, after I've finished this and all the DLC. And I'll hopefully never stop picking up FO3 anyway, to try different characters and approaches...

Since posting this, my house has been broken into and my Xbox and 6 games (inc. Fallout 3), along with a D-SLR camera, have been stolen. Seems I'll be starting again from the very beginning. That's quite irritating, I had a deathclaw hand in my house in megaton, I had a stable capflow, I was just getting enough shit together to start foraying into DC proper a bit more.

One thing though, I'll be able to get out of Vault 101 without killing the Overseer, this time... and with a greater understanding of skills and perks. I'm thinking of a character along the lines of Hannibal Lector?

[SecondTalon]

Question, since I have only briefly played the original Fallout, how does Fallout 3 compare to WOW, or Neverwinter Nights for being able to customize the look and feel of your character, pick abilities/spells and the things your character can do, i.e. crafting, gathering, or widget utilizing?

It.. uh.. what?

It doesn't? A far more apt comparison would be to Oblivion, obviously. But I'd say Fallout 3 has more in common with Deus Ex than it does Neverwinter Nights or WoW.

Your armor is important, but you often end up sacrificing armor for skill bonuses, until you get that skill high enough. Some people prefer to wander the wastes with a ton of gear, others prefer to use a home as a base for everything and wander with just the bare necessities, so there's that. Your weaponry cannot be customized (unless you have a mod for that) but there are unique weapons that have modified stats - either faster fire rates, more damage, larger ammo counts, bigger blasts or what have you - like the unique shotgun that has a much larger spread but does a lot more damage, making it so that in 3 meter distances it hits as hard as a rocket (assuming all the pellets hit one person)

Any ability you have is passive. You don't ever have to push U to turn on your regeneration ability or whatever. Shit just works.

As far as crafting/gathering/whatever goes, there are the improvised weapons - the Rock-It Launcher, the Shishkebab, the Dart Gun and so on.. that use various pieces of junk you find.. but no improvised weapon uses the same pieces of junk. So every steam assembly you find can be either sold or turned into a Steam Rifle.

But.. yeah, comparing it to WoW or NWN is like comparing it to Ultima 7 or Final Fantasy. They're video games, they put graphics on the screen, there's stat growth and a level system. Outside of that... there really isn't much similar.

[Drumheller769]

Thanks,

That was what I was looking for I guess in an answer of what kind of gameplay/game it is. I am a fan of NWN and WOW and I wasn't sure if I would like Fallout 3 or not. Im still not sure, but I am more interested based upon your reply than I previously was.

[SecondTalon]

Oblivion is Fallout 3 without Guns/ Fallout 3 is Oblivion without Bows, Axes, Maces, Magic. Both have swords, oddly enough.

That's the closest comparison, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they both use the same engine.

Morrowind, being the game before Oblivion, is also similar in playstyle and the like to Fallout 3. Moreso than WoW, at least.

You may have people call Fallout 3 a FPS. This is mostly incorrect, as FPS implies twitchy reflexes, and near perfect aim. Fallout 3 does not require twitchy reflexes (unless you're playing it that way) and without leveling up your various projectile skills (Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons), your aim is less than stellar. Of course, as the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades (explosives skill), so... Hand Grenades. Use'em. Most FPS games do not have a system in which you can pause the action indefinitely while deciding on your course of action (usually 1-5 shots, depending on the weapon in hand), then have said course play out in slow motion. Fallout (and by extension Fallout 3) does.

If you pressed me to compare it to a game without you, the player, having played Oblivion/Morrowind/Deus Ex/System Shock, then... I suppose I'd have to compare it to Bioshock or Half Life 2, in that Fallout 3 is a story-based First Person game (with a 3rd person option, if you want) in which you, the protagonist, move about the game world and achieve various goals. The comparisons fall apart as the world itself is not level/stage based, unless you were being fairly generous with your notions of Level/Stage and were counting everything not in a building or cavern system to be an Overworld in which you moved about and selected your stages at your whim... but in that case it'd be an Overworld in which quite a few story-specific events happen, a majority of the game takes place in, and quite a bit of your combat as well..... really, it's not an Overworld. Not unless you're just using an extremely basic definition set.

It also falls apart as neither Bioshock nor Half Life 2 have dozens of NPCs with often unique dialog options. I'd mention the morality system as well, but.. it's a fairly simplistic one. You can game it to your advantage pretty easily. Be as big of a murdering jerk as you want, but just hand over some purified water to some beggars for an hour, one bottle at a time, and suddenly you're a paragon of virtue. Even if you nuked Megaton. This also leads to some hilarious dialog from Three Dog over the radio. (*Depressed, spiteful voice* "The Scourge of the Wastelands is at it again. Let's see just how the Lone Wanderer from 101 is fucking us today....*overexcited, jubilant voice* Woo hoo! The Lone Wanderer led a daring rescue of some kidnapped citizens of Bigtown. Good job, 101! We need more like you out in the Wasteland.")

The game is fairly open. The primary quest of the game starting out is to Locate your Dad, and the only real lead you have is.. well, nothing, really. Assuming you follow the only real signs of civilization you can see from the starting area, you end up in Megaton and find out your Dad's gone into the DC ruins and blah blah blah. OR.. if you already have done that, you can just.. go to where he is, and skip about 15 quests. Sidequests can be taken at any time, and a lot of them are of the "Oh, hey, when you get a chance, do this thing" variety, so you can quickly accumulate 20 or more quests and accomplish several at once while you're heading to a location, as you're just doing them as you go along. Most of the quests are chains, though, and tend to start with "Go here and look at this thing" type stuff that later branches into whatever the quest is. There's also a couple dozen or so hidden quests that never show up in your journal and you kinda have to look for them - these are usually single or two stage quests because of their nature and the fact that they don't show up on a quest log, so if you don't do them right then, you'll likely forget about it. Jiggs' Loot is a perfect example of this - you have to input the correct number at several terminals in the Museum of Science. If you do this correctly, you get a note about the person the message was for should meet the message leaver at the usual spot - a diner out in the middle of nowhere. Whenever you go there, you find the message leaver dead (the body isn't there if you haven't gotten the note, and you can't get the note without putting in the right codes) and a couple of goons jump you. Among the loot is a unique Chinese Assault Rifle.

None of this shows up in your quest log, though the note does show up in your note log.

Anyway, hope some of that helps.