Fallout: New Vegas Previews

Yet another pair of E3-based previews for Fallout: New Vegas are available for your perusal, starting with this one-pager over at AusGamers:

The casinos are all functional, with slot machines and various tables replete with roulette, craps, blackjack, poker and more. There’s even a card game designed specifically for Fallout: New Vegas called Caravan I unfortunately never had the privilege of checking out, but I was told the game is played throughout the new game-world, and that your Luck would have an adverse affect on your ability to play any of these games which in turn affects your standing at the establishments – win too often and you’re out on your arse.

Everything here has been built using the same engine as Fallout 3, so it all looks very familiar, though much brighter and even with a bit more vegetation thrown in. I asked about dynamic weather, as I felt that was something sorely lacking in the last game, but was met with an “I don’t know” face and shrug. It would be great to see even a bit of rain (even though I know it barely rains in California, it would be good and we’re spoilt by the likes of Red Dead Redemption and its incredible weather system – so it should be the norm for games where you’ll be essentially ‘living’ a virtual life).

And then we have another article of similar length at Gameplanet:

The weapon skills have also been put under close scrutiny. Melee in particular has been significantly upgraded. It was a combat technique that was never really a viable option in Fallout 3, in spite of the wide array of weaponry available. Now, investing in melee will unlock special combat moves for every melee weapon type in the game.

Fallout: New Vegas has no direct narrative ties to Fallout 3. However, players of Fallout and Fallout 2 will discover a variety of creatures, characters and locations that featured in those titles. Many working on New Vegas have the heritage to do these nuggets of homage justice: Obsidian’s senior game designer Chris Avellone, for example, worked on Fallout 2 during his time with Interplay.