The return of post-apocalyptic-setting RPG series Fallout is eagerly anticipated here in the office, and so we lap up any word from Bethesda on Fallout 3 with big sticky tongues. Ahem.
Anyway, the developer's Pete Hines has been speaking about the sequel in an interview with Gamasutra and, while beans weren't exactly spilled, we were interested to hear that Bethesda is "already several years into the project."
"We are a fairly good ways into the process. The team has ramped up," Hines said, but added that "it will be a little while longer."
We're hopeful that Bethesda will fully unveil Fallout 3 in the next few months, although Hines explained that the developer won't do the grand reveal until there's something there to really get our teeth into.
"As is the case with all of our games, especially those of this scope, we don't really want to talk about them until they are in a state where we can show you, rather than having you simply picturing it in your minds eye", he said.
Sensible man. Any piecemeal info' released on this game will just be ripped to shreds until we actually get to see working code. Can't wait to see that code though.
Are they going to hire some actual writers, so we don't have Oblivion-quality dialogue? Given Fallout's good history of quality characters, dialogue and settings, it'd be a shame to see it suffer in that department.
I concur, Oblivions dialogue was pretty shoddy in places, as was the overuse of the same voice actors. More and more developers are taking the writing and acting seriously these days, so fingers crossed.
The Oblivion dialogue wasn't great, but I still think it was better than a lot of other games out there, (GOW for example - terrible). You'd have thought they'd hire a few decent actors for these games, especially considering the money they've spent on developing them, (seems a shame to spoil all that effort with shoddy voice overs).
Looking forward to Fallout 3 though. Fingers crossed they don't muck about with it too much and break the formula.
Aside from the terrible writing, what really made Oblivion's spoken dialogue fall apart is that they introduce the game with Patrick Stewart - an actor that can handle crap dialogue and make it sound great (bit like Ian McKellen) - so that you start off with a really high standard, then the moment you leave the prison you're assaulted by all the poor peasant voices.
Then, every-so-often, Sean Bean or Terrence Stamp pop up to remind you just how awful the generic voice acting is.
Hopefully they've learnt from that, although given one o the Bethesda's dev's pride in the writing in his PCZ interview a few issues back, I don't hold out much hope....
Actually the dialogue for GoW is intentionally cliche'd I think.
And regarding the acting for Oblivion - if you consider how many thousands of lines of dialogue they had to record, its not so bad...but imo if they hired a writer to proof read their scripts, and a director to properly get the most from the talent, it would have cost them more, but not much in the grand scheme of things, and the extra quality would have been worth it.
The thing that really hacks me off with Oblivion's dialogue is when it swaps voice actor mid-conversation. You'll be talking to a peasant or beggar or something and they'll start out sounding all poor and scummy, then if you ask them something generic you get the 'generic bloke' voice giving the answer, then back to scummy peasant again to say cheerio. Sloppy as s**t.
Sensible man. Any piecemeal info' released on this game will just be ripped to shreds until we actually get to see working code. Can't wait to see that code though.
Taking into account the general mood of Fallout fans since it was revealed that Bethesda had got their hands on the licence, I'd say that pretty much any info on the game will be ripped to shreds
I just hope they take account of what gamers said about Oblivion. But what gamers forget, is if you take the Elder Scrolls games out of the list, Bethesda doesn't have a good record at all when it comes to quality games, so I am not waiting with baited breath....
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
