The first two Fallout RPG titles from developer Interplay were some of the most critically acclaimed PC games of the 1990s and continue to inspire a rabid cult following (There were other games that had the Fallout name, Fallout Tactics and the console action game Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, but most fans of the series discount those like Battlestar Galactica fans discount Galactica 1980). Interplay tried to develop a third RPG game in the series before the company basically imploded a few years ago. That's when developer Bethesda Softworks came in and got the rights to publish new games in the post-apocalyptic series (earlier this year they bought the Fallout rights completely from the now much smaller Interplay, but allowing them to continue their plans to make a MMO out of the franchise).

BethSoft, of course, has developed their own Elder Scrolls RPG series over the years and the last two games in the series, Morrowind and Oblivion, are some of the most detailed games ever made, RPG or otherwise. But can this team bring new life into a game series that's already well established and much beloved by its fans? That question was partially answered at E3 2007 last week as we got our first real live gameplay look at Fallout 3, which will be released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in addition to the PC.

Before we begin, we wanted to mention one thing; Fallout 3 will be a first person perspective game like Morrowind and Oblivion but not like the top down aspect of the first two Interplay Fallout games. This may upset some Fallout purists but BethSoft's dev team feels the first person perspective really puts you more inside the world (there is an optional over-the-shoulder third person viewpoint you can switch to in the game).

The demo began with the opening trailer that was released over a month ago that showed the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout; a world that mixed destruction with some interesting satire and humor in the world's visuals and ads. Indeed the game's future world is based on what futurists and sci-fi artists of the 1950's thought the future would look like; one of nuclear powered cars and art-deco buildings. The nuclear war between China and the US changed all that, of course. While most of the world burned, Fallout 3's story really begins inside Vault 101, an underground bunker that was filled with survivors. The vault's massive circular door was then closed and sealed and as the game's narrator (voiced by actor Ron Perlman) mentions, it's never meant to ever be reopened. By the way, the game is supposed to be set about 30 years after the end of Fallout 2 but there's no need to really know what happened in the first two games to understand the plot of Fallout 3.

The game's real demo began as your player character looks around inside a room in Vault 101, a place filled with computers and technology that looks very old fashioned. You can change your character's likeness in various ways (you can be both male and female as well) and we were told that your character's father (voiced by actor Liam Neeson) will actually look like an older version of your custom character (slightly changed and older of course). You have a quick conversation with your father who tells you to take the vault aptitude test which is supposed to give your character a way to place him or her in Vault 101's society.

One thing your character gets to use is Pip Boy, a handheld computer that is basically your guide to the game's world in general and your character in particular. In our E3 demo, the game's executive producer Todd Howard told us that they may have wasted a lot of time playing and developing with Pip Boy; it is indeed a cool and fun way to look at your character's stats, inventory and more.

The game is supposed to have your father disappear and you are supposed to go find him. For E3 demo reasons we skipped this event and proceeded over to the vault entrance, encountering a funny robot who sounded a bit like Monty Python's Graham Chapman (right down to the "stupid git" farewell we got from him). It's clear from this standpoint and other aspects of the demo that Fallout 3 will indeed have a lot of humor like the first two games had which is certainly encouraging for long time Fallout fans. Anyway, we got the code to open the vault and in a rather long sequence we saw the massive door open and we walked through to the outside.

That outside world, as has been revealed in the game's previously released concept artwork, is in the bombed out Washington DC area rather than the American West of the first two Fallout games (Bethesda Softworks is based nearby the real city so they obviously will have a lot of real research into the visuals). This is where the game's visual's really stand out. Fallout 3 is using the Gamebryo engine (as did Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) but highly modified with some impressive textures and visual effects. While there will be some loading times when entering into a new area, much of Fallout 3 will be designed to be massive as you walk around a lot of the bombed out areas. We saw smashed out areas that echoed the 1950's art style of the game before the bombs fell, such a nuclear powered gas station for the world's future vehicles (you can even blow them up with a couple of shots of your trusty rifle).

Early in our demo we encountered our first mutated creature, a huge bug like being. It was here that we first encounters the game's Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System or V.A.T.S. This combat system will allow you to target specific points on your enemy. If you want a quick head-shot you can do so base on your characters skills and abilities. Fans of the first two Fallout games will be happy to know that those game's unique attribute system is still around for Fallout 3. For people not aware of them it's known as the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system, another acronym for all of the game's attributes (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck).

The demo then moved on to one section of the game, a settlement in the DC area called Megaton that's based around an airplane wreck. The reason it's called Megaton is pretty obvious; the settlement surrounds a bomb that just happens to not have exploded. We got a demo of how the game's conversation with another can slightly alter the game as our character chatted with Megaton's local sheriff. The demo got our character to be less than nice to the otherwise peaceful guy which meant that he wasn't going to be nice to us anymore.

We then entered into a local bar when we then encountered a stranger who had a rather dangerous proposition; he wanted us to rearm and explode the unexploded nuclear bomb to take out Megaton. Our demo had us agreeing to handle this assignment (if you decline, the game will obviously move along another plot path). We then moved down to handle the task of arming the bomb again and then we left the town, where we encountered some resistance from a pack of mutants and one rather large super mutant that looked like it had taken a wrong turn from Epic Games' Gears of War. It took our using another weapon in the game, the mini-nuclear missile Fat Boy, to take him out. Finally our mysterious stranger appeared again to blow up Megaton in a massive nuclear mushroom cloud.

During the E3 demo we were reminded that this was going to be an RPG game rather than a first person shooter. There will be aspects of the game that will require you to do things that most shooters don't need. One such thing is the deterioration of weapons over time which means that if you want them to continue working you have to repair them. You can also improve the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes of your character as you level up and learn to use new skills. The game will also have several endings (unlike Oblivion which didn't really have an ending) based on your actions and their consequences.

While we didn't actually play the game ourselves in our E3 demo it's clear that Bethesda Softworks is pretty deep in development on Fallout 3 and even though the game won't be released until the fall of 2008 it's also clear that their ideas fit right into the Fallout universe. This won't be a post-apocalypse remake of Oblivion; the VATS combat system, the definite endings of the game and the unique S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system will separate this game from BethSoft' previous RPGs. Yes, some Fallout fans will likely be upset that the game is designed as a first person title and is set on the East Coast but that's nitpicking in our eyes. The real test of Fallout 3 will be if the game keeps the humorous spirit of the top down first two Fallout games with the high end graphics and immersive gameplay that the new developer plans to bring to the table. The E3 demo was way too brief to put a definite answer to that question but we certainly will be keeping an eye on the game in the many months before its scheduled shipment to stores.

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