Fallout: New Vegas - Preview Flood #1

Bethsoft has been previewing their title lineup and, naturally, Fallout: New Vegas is a big part of their plans.  This recent showing has resulted in a flood of new previews, which we'll break up into a couple of posts.

From Eurogamer:

Obsidian has slipped into Fallout 3's clothes as comfortably as it once assumed KOTOR's mantle. New Vegas is technically and mechanically almost identical to the older game. As he walks us through a demo, creative director Chris Avellone reveals a number of tweaks and additions to Fallout 3's character development, conversational storytelling and the crunchy, stop-start hyper-violence of its VATS-powered combat. But the engine is plainly unchanged and to all intents and purposes, the game looks just the same.

It doesn't feel quite the same, however. It's three years later. The Mojave desert, though still identifiably post-holocaust, is nowhere near as ruined or bleak as the Capital Wasteland. Buildings stand whole, there's a pale wash of blue in the sky, scrubby vegetation clings to the landscape and some warmth and colour have seeped back into the scene. Although he doesn't take us there, Avellone teases us with glimpses of the still-standing Las Vegas Strip dominated by the huge Stratosphere tower, McCarran airport in the foreground.

GameSpot, as they go hunting geckos:

Using a varmint rifle, we watched several overgrown geckos' heads explode with a few quick shots. There's a kill cam that can be set, which slows down the final shot and makes your kills feel more cinematic, but this can be turned off if you don't like seeing limbs fly in slow motion. Sawyer said that geckos were a favorite from Fallout 2 and that there will be tougher versions to fire at later in the game. The core controls, as well as the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (VATS), remains mostly the same, and we later found out that special skill options have been added for melee attacks. Sawyer explained that there wasn't a lot of development time for New Vegas, and because a lot of people played Fallout 3, the developers didn't want to make any drastic changes--just improvements to the existing controls. He also said that aiming should be more responsive, reactive, and predictable. To discourage players from always aiming for the head, certain weapons will be more effective against limbs. At times, a red shield icon will appear to let you know that you're dealing less damage per shot and that it might be a good idea to switch targets to conserve precious bullets.

Joystiq on companions:

One of the most significant new gameplay mechanics in Fallout: New Vegas comes in the form of the companion wheel, which is designed for easy access to Companion Commands, including access to companion inventories and behavioral orders. If you want your companions to attack everything in sight, you can set them to be aggro. Or, on the flip side, you can have them be very docile.

From what I saw, this new radial menu system is a very easy to navigate and is much neater and quicker to access than the companion system in Fallout 3. In fact, the companions themselves will talk to you now and tell you if you've done something stupid, like arming a gun expert with a melee weapon. Companions also offer benefits to you in the form of perks, so you'll want to choose carefully when picking a buddy to go exploring with you.

...and a list for the rest.

• Games Radar
• 1Up
• Shacknews
• Kotaku

Switching gears from previews, Giant Bomb has a video interview with Josh Sawyer and VG247 speaks with Chris Avellone. A snip:

I’m sure it was. Back to New Vegas in general, Bethesda supported Fallout 3 humongously. What plans does Obsidian have for New Vegas? Any plans for DLC?

Avellone: I can’t say much about it. Bethesda has plans, but we don’t know the actual facts of them yet, so it’s pretty much premature to say anything – but my hope would be that they would.

Hypothetically, would you like DLC done for New Vegas?

Avellone: Hypothetically, I would love that.

Finally (for the moment), NMA is furiously newsposting everything, so head over there if you want the works until we catch up.