Fallout 3 - News News News

Of all the game news that is around at the moment there is nothing that I get more excited about and yet, at the same time, also feel shudders of apprehension than Fallout 3. The news today that Liam Neeson is voicing one of the characters is all a bit, "Who really cares" to me. It just mean that Bethesda have spent a lot of money paying a name to be a voice. Quality voice acting doesn't necessarily come with highly paid Hollywood actors. Although it seems to be more of the norm nowadays for developers to spend too much money paying a Hollywood ego. Possibly money which could be better spent elsewhere. Also, they have a new graphic up which features Washington (which ultimately means that the game will, at least, involve the East Coast of the US this time).

It doesn't particularly worry me that Bethesda are involved in the games creation. Without Bethesda there may not have been a Fallout 3 (although I am sure that Interplay would have been pushing the license on everyone for as much money as they could get for it). Bethesda are a well established company that do make a quality product. Whether you like that product or not is another matter. It is also good to see what someone else can do with an idea. Even if they do change the game from top down RPG to a First Person experience I will be interested to see how they do it. I don't believe that Turn Based will get a showing (even though I will find this disappointing because I love turn based games - they appeal to the pen-and-paper notions which started RPGs). I just don't believe that a lot of software developers believe that it is "sellable" to the gaming public. I don't believe that this is a problem with the gaming public but more a problem with developers. They don't make turn based combat appealing. One of the unique features which really made Fallout different from the rest of the games was the descriptions of different hits and misses provided by Black Isles. Every single piece of combat was provided with interesting narrative to give the player an idea as to what was going on. This is where turn based gameplay has lost a lot of its appeal. It is about narrative as much as anything else. If a developer created a narrative of the action as interesting as Fallout was then it wouldn't matter that people were involved in turn based combat because they would be interested in what was being said.

While developers spend a lot of time creating games which have a large amount of graphical detail they often overlook the narrative detail. It is a real shame that more writer's don't get a gig in the gaming industry. This would be a better place for game developers to spend their money rather than on overpaid Hollywood actor's. Sorry Mr Neeson, but you are not selling a game to me. It would be good to see a shift in this direction for developers.