Bethesda Ruin America, by Tom Francis

Bethesda Ruin America

I’ve taken over 700 shots of Fallout 3, but they’re almost all of people’s heads exploding. Those will come up in future Fallout Girl entries, but in the meantime I direct you to the more scenic work of freelancer and PC Gamer contributor Duncan Harris. In fact, one of the things he contributed to PC Gamer was a guide to gaming photography, a term which starts to make sense when you watch the slideshow of his Fallout shots fullscreen. A warning! There are mild visual spoilers for the main quest about forty shots in. If you haven’t got far enough in the main quest to imagine what they might be, stop when you reach this shot:

One of the main reasons I wasn’t hugely excited about Fallout 3 was that I thought bleak would end up just being boring. I’m happy to say I was wrong about that, its world feels rich and full and has moments of extraordinary beauty. But I do still think a wasteland doesn’t have to be so uniform. I would have loved to find forests of melted plastics, vast impact craters and thickets of whatever inverted vegetation regrows 200 years after armageddon.

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Chris Livingston: Man. I really need to upgrade because my game looks nothing like those pictures.

Niteowl: Have you considered that, perhaps, you're still playing Fallout 2?

Smurfy: Have you considered that, perhaps, you're not playing it at all and just sit completely still in your chair imagining what it might look like?

Killa-Ewok: It's good Mr.Livingston isn't dead.

ZomBuster: I didn't realize that 2nd pic is 112, it looks so less.. awesome for me :(

ZomBuster: Only thing that is missing make those screens incredible are shadows.

Tentaculat: I played through the entire main story arc without realizing who the voice of President Eden was. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I had one of those "ahhhhh" moments. For some reason it made me happier than I already was. Fantastic game.

Chijts: Great photos, and great job to Bethesda for making the place! I guess it would be even more haunting to someone who comes from D.C..

So if this is how it looks on a nice PC, how's it look on an xbox?

Jazmeister: I see a lot of F3 shots suggesting it's part of the new ShoulderCam movement. What does it all mean, Tom?

Nonomu198: My rig isn't dosen't even match the minimun system requirements.

I guess I could just make a collage out of the thousands of thousands of Fallout 3 pictures around the net and use my imagination.

spuzman00: Nonomu:
Great idea. I think I'm going to do the same thing for Left 4 Dead when it comes out.


	Pentadact: Jaz, it's a first-person game, but there's a key to go third-person. Whereupon it does that stupid back-and-to-the-right thing. Back, and to the right. Back, and to the right. I got Dead Space recently, and it's back, and so far to the right that you simply can't see half of what's happening to you. The only time this camera angle would be a good idea is in a pirate game in which you play the parrot.

Jazmeister: Woah woah woah woah. Allow me to reformat your words so you can better look upon what flippancy wrought this day:

A pirate game.

In which you play the parrot.

...

If people could switch to third person in real life, you'd see them doing that corner-look thing a lot. Muggings would be altered forever. You could even have a face to face conversation with someone facing at right angles to eachother.

yns88: Wow, he's really right about the gaming photography bit -- those screens make the game look about twice as good as it actually does.

J-Man: Important question: What do I buy?
A: Fallout 3
B: Left 4 Dead
C: Mirror's Edge
D: Call of Duty: World at War


	Pentadact: I'd pick A. I'm optimistic about C, but it's not going to be in the same league, and D doesn't look much fun from what I've seen over people's shoulders. B is great, but there are a few football fields between great and A.

DoctorDisaster: You know you can use the mouse wheel to adjust the third-person distance, right? I find it hard to believe that I noticed something Award-Winning Games Journalist Tom Francis missed.

In general, third-person is OK if you're outdoors and like to use VATS. Indoors the camera gets all up in your personal space and it's very awkward. Third-person if you're playing it as a shooter? There's a reason TPS is an Office Space reference and not a popular video game genre.

Also, I have to agree with the others here that my Fallout 3 doesn't look that good. One of many drawbacks of console preeminence is that graphics don't scale as well as they used to.

Except for the Source, of course (of course). L4D looks great!

J-Man: Really? Fallout is better than L4D? I've played the 2 demo levels at least 10 times.

StalinsGhost: I love some of these screens. The Poisoned Sponge posted a bit about them on the Reticule a few days ago: I was quite happy to sit through and watch them all in the slide show :D

J-Man: Important question: What do I buy?
A: Fallout 3
B: Left 4 Dead

Both of these. A) for the hugely atmospheric, largely brilliant RPG/FPS action. I've got a review here: http://thereticule.c... ...st-review/ :)

B) for being simply the best online FPS this year. Or so I think having played much demoage.

Garg: "whatever inverted vegetation regrows 200 years after armageddon."

Had to reply to this; there is some very odd vegetation in one area of the game, although it's quite out of the way and hard(ish) to find. But yes I would agree that the environments could have done with a bit more variety.


	Pentadact: Heh, yep, I just last night found the place you're talking about. It's awesome. There's a lot more diversity in Fallout 3 than I gave it credit for, but I'd still like to see more of it breaking up the rocky wastes that form 90% of the landscape.

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		The grappling hook level. But not just because of the grappling hook. This is a level where you play a six year-old girl, piloting fighter jets and mowing down legions of trained soldiers. ...

James

By Pentadact

Bethesda Ruin America

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