The Vault Door Opens

Howard demonstrated the main character's departure and pivotal opening of the vault door and took the tour outside. This is where the demo truly impressed, because Bethesda has done an exemplary job designing an all new post-nuclear world. Fallout faithful will be thrilled; the developer has essentially taken the same kind of retro-futuristic style of the first two games and painted it on a larger canvas with a more detailed and intimate look. Seeing Washington D.C. in ruins was awe-inspiring; I can't wait to explore more of the Capitol Wasteland, and according to Howard, that's exactly what the development team had in mind when they create Fallout 3.

View the Fallout 3 E307 Slideshow (14 images)

After showing off the environments, Howard then demonstrated Fallout 3's new combat gameplay system. If there was one flaw with the original Fallout, it was the somewhat clunky combat system, which could slow down gameplay. The new combat system blends a first-person shooter style with elements of the original attack mode. For example, Howard encountered some very large mutant ants and began taking aim at them with a rifle in FPS mode. Later, Howard engaged some Super Mutants lurking in the tunnels of the city's Metro subway (yet another amazing and disturbingly realistic map) and switched to a targeting HUD mode called V.A.T.S. (Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System). The V.A.T.S. mode freezes game time and displays the various body parts of the enemy - head, torso, arms and legs - with percentages of "attack success."

Howard took aim at a Super Mutant's head, which had an artificially high percentage of 66 percent for the purposes of the demo. He press a button on the Xbox 360 controller, and exited the HUD mode, which returned the game to a slow motion mode that follow the bullet as it ripped through the Super Mutant's head, which caused it to exploded (see slideshow for an up close view of a headshot). In addition to the combat system, Fallout 3 also offers a lot of destructible environments. Players can shoot holes in street, for example, which are show with impressive detail thanks to the Oblivion engine. You can also take aim at abandoned atomic cars. Howard found one that still had some juice in its reactor engine and fired a few shots at the car, which created a gorgeous mini-mushroom cloud explosion.

While the first-person shooter mode may not be the RPG fan's cup of tea, the HUD mode should satisfy the needs of Fallout purists who yearn for an experience close to the original game. And from the looks of the demo, there should be plenty of combat to keep action junkies happy. Howard showed a massive firefight between Super Mutants and human members of the Brotherhood of Steel amongst the ruins of the Capitol Wasteland and it was an exhilarating sequence. There was even a boss battle; Howard fought against a large Super Mutant Behemoth with a delicious weapon called the Fat Man, which acts like an RPG but shoots mini-nukes.

There was a quite a big of action in the demo, but it's not as if Bethesda has dumbed down Fallout for FPS fans. In fact, much of the gameplay involves player choices. Howard said the central them for Fallout 3 is "sacrifice and survive," and that players will be forced to make ethical decisions that will affect the course of the game as well as the development of your character. What will you do in order to find adequate food and water supplies, for example? During the demo Howard took us the nearby location of Megaton, which looks like a cross between an Old West camp and Bartertown from "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." Megaton was actually built in a crater with an un-detonated nuke buried in the middle, and the town represents another amazing-looking map for Fallout 3.

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