TheMadPeacock On The Sofa

Matt Peckham has written a review of the first Fallout 3 trailer over at PC World’s blog that is worth reading..

We’re shown two minutes, over two-thirds of which are spent panning slowly (if delightfully, courtesy The Ink Spots’ “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire”) back from the interior of a 1950s-style “radiation king” radio and through a gutted bus full of curios like hula dancer dolls, toolboxes, toy trucks, and teddy bears, then sidewise and out for a panoramic shot of a post-apocalyptic urban landscape. At the end, an armored up Vader-esque figure (a soldier sporting the technology-worshipping “Brotherhood of Steel” logo) turns, breath hissing, to look at the camera, then blackness as Ron Perlman (hey Hellboy!) says simply “War…war never changes.” (Perlman did the narration for both prior Fallout games, including the strategy spinoff, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel.)

The hoopity-doo here is clearly the stunning Gamebryo engine (used for Oblivion), which according to Bethesda’s Pete Hines, is rendering that trailer in-engine, i.e. that’s how the game’s probably going to look (or better). While visual muscularity does as much for me as watching bodybuilders in harnesses pull semi-trailers, I’m a sucker for high-style, and this trailer has it in spades. While it technically guarantees nothing, I think it’s safe to say Bethesda knows what fans of the series want to see, and this trailer was carefully orchestrated to ensure that happened.

You can read the full review at http://blogs.pcworld.com