Fallout 3 Almost Finished
Video games have a rather unique ability when it comes to created/manufactured commodities. With many things, the first to hit the market achieve domination. While the iPod wasn’t by any means the first MP3 player, it was the first with a huge hard drive and a big marketing campaign. The result? iPods everywhere. Even people who own a Zune or other product will occasionally refer to their MP3 player as an iPod to avoid confusion. Toyota Priuses have a big grip on the hybrid car market. There’s a bit of a ’snooze you lose’ mechanic in place which doesn’t apply to video games. Games can have some pretty big delays before fans start losing interest. Sometimes even cancellations can’t get gamers down. When it was announced that Fallout 3 had been canned, many of us still held out the hope that somebody’d buy up the license and make it happen. Bethesda is making post apocalypse lovers’ day by announcing that Fallout 3 is almost completed and on schedule for its fall release. As with most Bethesda projects this has grown from being ambitious to downright epic. Instead of the initially announced dozen or so endings, there’s now around two hundred different ending cinematics depending on your characters actions, choices and karma. The cinematics will be a pleasant upgrade from the simple narration of the repercussions of your actions featured at the end of the first games, although the massive number of possibilities shows that Bethesda is putting the amount of thought and care into it we’d all hoped they would be. The overall game time has expanded as well, with the possible game time exceeding a hundred hours. Die-hard Fallout fans will be happy to know that everyone’s favorite NPC is back. That’s right, you can travel the wastes with Dogmeat at your side. The developers have been tweaking and playing with the canine companion; altering his abilities and stats in order to get him where they want. According to the developers you’ll have to be a fairly reckless character to get him killed. You’ll also be able to travel with a humanoid companion in addition to the four-footed fighter, but that’s it as apparently any more companions gets confusing. Given the unfortunate tendencies of the Oblivion AI to run in front of my arrows/lightning spells/etc, I’d rather not have a whole horde of allies jumping in front of my bullets anyways.