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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @11:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the tranquility-lane-2 dept.

We knew in advance that we’d be hearing more about Fallout 4 and Doom from Bethesda at their “E3 showcase” Sunday evening, but the best laid plans of mice and mutants gang aft agley—a brief technical mix-up the day before also told us that we’d be getting a look at Dishonored 2 as well. But there didn’t need to be any surprises—those three AAA games themselves were enough to warm any gamer’s heart. Especially if you like Fallout.


[...] First up was a new Doom game, titled simply Doom. The latest entry in the long-running franchise is built on id Software’s latest engine, id Tech 6, and id Software Executive Producer Marty Stratton described the game as being about “badass demons, big effing guns, and moving really, really fast.”

The audience was then shown a long video consisting entirely of in-engine gameplay, with a space-suited marine running through a Union Aerospace Corporation mining facility, blowing up hell-spawn in fine form. Doom games have always looked great, thanks to the engine wizardry of John Carmack and friends; though Carmack is no longer at id, the new Doom game carries on that trend. Where id Tech 6 makes Doom look great is in the lighting and shadowing—we’re long past the point where realistic gaming environments are amazing, but id Tech 6’s shadowing and lighting really did make a noticeable difference. We also got a glimpse at a hell level, which, in contrast to Doom 3’s portrayal of the netherworld, was relatively well-lit and moody—though the standard “id palette” of grays, blacks, and reds still dominated.


[...] The Dishonored 2 glimpse we got appeared to be all pre-rendered footage, and much like the last go-round, it oozed faux-Victorian steampunk atmosphere and style. The trailer starred a masked assassin (revealed to be an adult princess Emily Kaldwin), and she was seen infiltrating a stronghold, fighting off clockwork bad guys and overcoming obstacles using a variety of Dishonored-style tricks, gadgets, and sorcery.

Players will be offered a choice between playing as the first game’s Corvo Attano or as Emily Kaldwin, as shown in the demo. The first game’s stealth-based, no-kill gameplay is still an option (and, given how the plot in the first game wound it, is likely the preferred option).


[...] “One of the great things about Fallout is the world that existed before the bombs fell,” Bethesda Studios Game Director Todd Howard said after he took the stage, referring to the retro-futuristic 1950s pastiche that is the pre-war Fallout world—where the men wore hats and the cars all had fins. The new game starts in that kitschy world of plastic-covered furniture and robo-servants. The familiar Fallout procedure of character generation and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute assignments plays out in the Technicolor past, with players able to pick a male or female character to play (with the family robot actually saying the name the player typed in—Howard interjected that Bethesda had recorded about a thousand popular names for use in in-game dialogue).

[...]Howard confirmed again that the game will include “the massive ruins of downtown Boston” as its showpiece location, though much of the demo footage took place in wastelands outside of the city.

Fallout wouldn’t be Fallout without the Pip-Boy, and Howard showed off how the wrist-mounted computer had been updated for the new game, with subtle animations and a new layered armor system (and playable Pip-Boy games, too). In fact, players who purchase the game’s collector’s edition (price unannounced) will receive an actual, for-real physical Pip-Boy prop—which can house a smartphone running Bethesda’s Pip-Boy app. This works as a second screen to your actual game, letting you control your character’s in-game Pip-Boy from your physical wrist.

It's a big announcement for gamer fans. Let's hope Fallout 4 is less buggy than New Vegas.


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  • (Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:29PM

    by sudo rm -rf (2357) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:29PM (#196863) Journal

    with the family robot actually saying the name the player typed in

    I was waiting for that feature a long time now, essentially since dialogues became recorded voices for the first time (when was that?)

    Bethesda had recorded about a thousand popular names for use in in-game dialogue

    Oh well... I never used to give my characters popular names...
    (Also, I see weird implications for the next story. And wasn't there a sexbot named F.I.S.T.O. in Fallout: NV?)

    On a side note, nowadays I spend more time watching other people playing on youtube (I'm somewhat addicted to EU4) than playing myself, but I'm not going to skip Fallout 4. After the obligatory few months of bugfixing have passed.

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  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:32PM

    by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:32PM (#196868) Homepage Journal

    Q: What is your name?
    A: Boobs
    Q: Boobs! Your name is Boobs?
    A: Yes!

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:59PM

      by MrGuy (1007) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:59PM (#196904)

      Which sort of raises the question - are these the 1,000 most common names that people have? Or the 1,000 most common names that people give their avatars in videogames? Very different sets of names.

      Also, wonder if (as Apple did with Siri) they've programmed in some "easter eggs" for situations where people are deliberately trying to be offensive.

      • (Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:57PM

        by TK (2760) on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:57PM (#196928)

        Any swear words make the robot start talking in French.

        --
        The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum