Fallout 3 Preview

Gouranga! VATS can be messy, but gibbage on this scale is rare with low-end weapons. This player has likely picked the 'Bloody Mess' perk, which ups the gore levels.

By the end of my next encounter, with a group of unfortunate molerats, I had the VATS system down pat. As speculation initially suggested, it's likely you'll be using this stop-start method for the vast majority of fights in Fallout 3, since real-time combat - and the ensuing damage - occurs at a bewildering pace; you'll do far better, it seems, to attack with some of your action points, retreat into cover and then strike again. It feels a bit unusual at first, but once you get into this process you actually do begin to consider the same kind of tactics that were so vital in the first two Fallout games. Every round must count - forcing you to choose between safe-but-less-damaging body shots, and the riskier but more effective blows to limbs or heads.

The first fight that really hammered this point home took place when I discovered a band of raiders, skulking among wrecked cars under a series of blown-out buildings. I'd spotted one slap-headed guard with his back to me, and planned upon sneaking up to him for an easy kill. Clicking the left analogue stick enters stealth mode, shifting your hero into a crouch; a simple indicator at the top of the screen reveals your target's awareness levels, displaying a warning if you manage to alert your target. This is exactly what happened to me, as my efforts to line-up an easy headshot brought me into the eyeline of two thugs I'd previously failed to notice.

With a yell, the newcomers made a start in my direction, while a bullet from another unseen enemy thwacked into my chest. I was still only armed with a pistol - and a fairly shoddy one at that, thanks to the new degrading weapons system - and it became clear that I was in big trouble. It was here that the more tactical side of VATS came into play: I ran forward and emptied four action points into baldy's face - bullets ripped through his neck and sent his head flying. While the dead man's cohorts closed in, I looted his body, snatching up his hunting rifle and armour. I also inhaled a hit of Jet - an addictive drug that temporarily boosts your combat abilities. Moving out from cover, I was able to use the rifle's superior stopping power to cripple the leg of the knife-woman baring down on my position; this in turn bought me time to charge action points to use against the two remaining gunmen. Two minutes and several gory dismemberments later, the battle was over.

It's worth pointing out that while all this was going on, I'd been listening to Galaxy News - one of the radio stations you can access through your PIPBoy 2000 device. In the middle of a bloody fire-fight, the DJ started playing Maybe by the Inkspots - the signature tune to the first Fallout. It was a pretty bizarre moment, to be honest. There's a broken-English saying, one commonly used in South East Asia, that sums up this scenario: "same-same but different". The combat in Fallout 3 - and indeed much of what I've seen so far in the game as a whole - is a strange mix of new and familiar elements. It's a bit like putting on new shoes and finding that they feel like a pair of your oldest trainers - neither one nor the other. Of course, this won't be the case for newcomers to the series, but it will be interesting to see how this hybrid-nature eventually plays out for Fallout veterans - whether these contrasts will create a jarring clash, or else settle into something that feels like a natural evolution. I suspect the answer may vary from player to player.

"I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture... and kill them."

One point of change that certainly does work is the exploration of new territory. In Fallout 1 and 2, long-distance travel was conducted over a map screen, with the occasional interruption for random encounters. Boosting your outdoorsman skills (now removed) would give you a degree of control over these fights, but essentially they arrived totally out-of-the-blue. Now it's up to you to navigate new areas; you see the scenery changing around you and must keep an eye out for enemies or signs of their presence, such as the strung-up corpses the raiders use to mark their turf. As I progressed into the wasteland, I developed a habit of periodically tapping the VATS trigger to see if there was anything I could lock onto. I wasn't sure if this technically a bit of cheat at first, but eventually reasoned that it was simply equivalent to being a vigilant traveller, scanning the horizon for threats.

The flipside to this exploration is the fact that you can instantly teleport back to a location you've already visited - a feature carried over from Oblivion. While I understand this design choice I can't say I'm a big fan of it, since it seemingly removes any element of risk from making a long trip back to safer climes. Yes, it saves you from having to walk for half an hour across the map - but this is supposed to be a devastated, post-apocalyptic landscape; being able to jump from A to B somewhat spoils the illusion, and makes the world seem less inherently dangerous.

Having argued this, I'll happily admit that the teleport system was extremely useful in the context of having limited time with the game. So determined had I been to get away from Megaton and things Wez previously saw, that I ended up in some seriously rough territory. I'm pleased to confirm that Bethesda has moved away from the universal-levelling approach it applied to your opponents in Oblivion: Dashing off into the unknown at a low level, as I did, is likely to get you killed - or at least seriously maimed. After a good fifteen minutes battling the supermutants who have taken up residence in the Chrysalis Motor building, I realised that my hands-on time with game was slipping away at a rate of knots.