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Whatever crosses my mind in relation to computer games; mostly screenshots. I'm also playing around with a stitching program so expect some screenshot panoramas (they're tagged #panorama). I'm aiming for a high original content ratio. Y'know, as original as screenshots of games that I had no part in making can be ;) Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim dominate the blog so far. I'm planning to play a bunch of other games shortly though, so expect some Witcher, Bioshock, Deus Ex, Dishonored, or some such. Like what you like, reblog what you want, feel free to ask me anything on and off topic, you know the drill. (Feel entirely free to remove my comments when reblogging, btw.) Have fun!

[thefalloutscrolls]

Sooo ... Fallout 76

This was originally much longer but well ...

No need to wake me when Fallout 6 comes out.

[thefalloutscrolls]

What keeps fascinating me most about these details is that they flash on the screen for a few seconds at most, and yet somebody sat down and wrote them in a way that makes sense.

Like, the number of life functions that are at risk actually increases during those few moments. Luckily, debit card verification is not among them.

I wonder if I can go and buy an internal med-pump.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the HUD, at least potentially, is the comm system to the upper left, here indicating a connection to TBug. The compass indicates Jackie as J, the upper right shows mission objectives. Like I said, nothing to surprising.

(The blue arrow to the right indicates Kareznikov (?) duration. It seems that after taking the boost via inhaler, there’s a set amount of time during which bullet time can be triggered.)

I do hope that CDPR makes their HUD as customizable as it was in the Witcher though. I want to find the Scavenger Hiteout without the help of the Omniscient Floaty Thing (tm).

The direction from which V is attacked is also indicated, as per industry standard.

Non-lethal is a thing. Which is very, very good. I always wanted to do stealth/non-lethal in an rpg in an interesting way (even going so far as to do an Illusion playthrough in Skyrim).

Picking up bodies is not particularly new, but if you can hide them to avoid detection, well, that has promise.

I’m somewhat torn on this. On the one hand, a case could be made that showing all those tidbits of info increase immersion by simulating what the player would know if they were V. On the other hand, at some point all these infos add up to a lot of red numbers crowding the screen.

tl;dr

Nothing surprising concerning the HUD; HUD should be customizable; possible stealth support.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Ok, where to begin?

I’m going to assume that you have seen the trailer so I won’t be going for the prettiest pics. Just a few things I’ve spotted. Be prepared for really blurry cuouts for illustrative purposes.

First off, the level of detail is mindboggling. That’s obvious. Perhaps less obvious due to its seamless nature is the number of animations. We have:

Jackie gesturing at the female (scavenged) body while holding a gun.

Jackie telling you to be quite while alerting you V to the presence of a scavenger in the next room.

A scavenger pushing a wheelchair.

Jackie trying to pry a door open.

Jackie dual-wielding guns from cover behind a corner.

Jackie bursting through the wall a beating up on the last scavenger standing. (It’s mostly out of sight, but it does look as if he goes on to manually pick up the gun.)

This pattern holds true for the entire trailer - new animations are seen throughout. The work that has gone into this must be enormous.

Just imagine how you would go about scripting any of the above scenes with the animation suite from Fallout 4 ...

[thefalloutscrolls]

Not much to see here until the actual functions of the stats are known in more detail. Cool is a cross between reputation and charisma.

Just in case you’re tardy to the party (even tardier than me, that is): in a departure from the source material, there will be no classes. The source material is a pen and paper rpg though, where a diverse class system makes much more sense than in a singleplayer game. A “fluid class system” as CDPR calls it make much more sense here, imo. Assuming of course that interesting specializations are possible and meaningful. None of that master smith+alchimist+enchanter+swordsman+thief+archer nonsense that’s made all my characters play alike in Skyrim.

At this point though, I’m wonderin in what way - if at all - the fluid class system adds an additional layer on top of simply leveling, picking perks, or implants. In Witcher 3, we had to specialize as well, but I wouldn’t call that a class system.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Unsurprisingly, V’s name is “missing data”, to be entered by the player.

His/her date of birth is listed as 2054 though, which would make V a mere 23 years old in 2077. I smell a good story about how he/she teamed up with grizzled old street veteran Jackie - particularly since Jackie is clearly a Night City resident whereas V is new to the sprawl.

The backstory menu features submenus for Childhood Hero, Key Life Event, and Why Night City? It’s not clear what impact these choices will have, but I’m hoping for something more than alternative dialogue lines. The voiceover does seem promising though ... (”What you choose here will unlock different possibilities later on.”)

While the choices are sufficiently vague to allow for roleplaying, it’s clear that our character is a street kid. Key Life Events do not include “not getting second cyberpony for birthday”.

I also wonder whether Education and Prior Convictions, left blank for now, will actually serve a function or just exist for aesthetic purposes. Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but given that V just moved to Night City, this may be a new and incomplete data set. (On the lower right, it says Night City Recognition Program - perhaps suggesting an automated data gathering protocol.)

[thefalloutscrolls]

Who's to say that it isn't an A.I. monitoring all of night city

I’d guess it’s some autonomous system that registers all travel into (and perhaps out of) Night City. It says “Night City Recognition Program” on the following screens (in addition to other hints such as record ID, report no.) and does seem to keep track of the number of inhabitants, which would probably make it property of the city administration.

I will say though that from what CDPR said about emphasizing the “punk” in cyberpunk rather than the “cyber” it seems unlikely to me that AIs will play a large role. That’s speaking from a narratological standpoint though; no emphasis being put on AIs does not preclude their existence in-game.

It would be pretty interesting if the database appeared later on, such as V accessing someone else’s data (sans the key life events, most likely).

[thefalloutscrolls]

The character creation menu takes the form of a database entry of some sort. Which sort of begs the question - what organization deems it necessary to maintain a database of nude 3d models of all the (according to the first screen) 12.396,608 inhabitants of Night City?

It must be a bitch to keep up to date too, given the existence of biomods ... also, I shudder to think what some of the more extreme implantees look like under the hood. Just saying.

Anywho, the character creation menu seems more limited than, say, Fallout 4, which is honestly fine by me as long as the range of options is diverse enough.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Couldn’t settle on replay speed. Love the fluidity as well es the dynamism of the scene.

The first look at (a) female V as well as the first hint at stealthy gameplay.

[thefalloutscrolls]

(Played backwards. Works better than expected.)

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“Arasaka unveils new Project for NC.” I guess someone’s opposed ...

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[thefalloutscrolls]

This is a seamless continuation of the first car scene. It’s clearly the same area, V still has the same gun, the lighting’s the same, etc. It’s where V says “It’s a city of dreams. And I’m a big dreamer” and gets ready to do something (presumably damage) with a railgun.

And yet, mere moments later he finds himself being pursued. Did the plan go south before it could go into motion? Or maybe it was part of the plan? (Nobody is really assuming it goes smoothly, though, do they? :-) ) Or, of course, maybe this was just a generic action sequence made for the trailer ...

Note the cockpit-style switches in the upper right corner, with one being covered by a safety latch. And again, the lowlife cyberpunk V has the flashy, over-the-top design car whereas the pursuers are driving a plain (if bulky) vehicle. I’m guessing they’re corporate.

Also, remember Lizzy’s eyebrows?

V’s eyebrows are sporting the same gap. Might be anything from a fashion statement to a political one ...

[thefalloutscrolls]

The trauma team was basically a private medical service in the tabletop game. Trauma Team International is actually one of those big corporations; they’ll gladly help your - for a ton of money. It would be pretty damn awesome if you could pay for their services in CP2077 as well. They do seem to be quite effective (in contrast with the gold-toothed cyborg ...).

The second through fourth pic are from the same scene (as evidenced by the billboards in the background), so it’s not simply a drive-by hit. Also, the last file is called screen-shock-to-save-shoot-to-kill-en, implying that this is part of the trauma team’s services rather than part of some agenda.

There’s a ton of stuff strewn about, but it’s not all too clear what might have caused the emergency. The smoking container seems to be part of the medical equipment judging by the colors, although I have no clue what it might be. There is no visible cause of injury; my money is on the pills.

Note the different helmets for troopers and medics. Also note that the medics are still armed, albeit lightly. The two most prominent trauma unit members in the first pic have “Wernix” and “*ooch” written on their helmets. Names, perhaps.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Lizzy Wizzy again. I chose this exact frame because her dress is bright red except when there are flashes. Which basically means that if someone takes a picture of her, her dress is flesh-colored.

Speaking of flesh colored, I keep wondering about Lizzy’s capabilities. I would guess her matted chrome skin is no simple body paint, yet there was makeup clearly visible in the detached jaw scene. I’m probably reading way too much into it though.

Either way, this scene is in stark contrast with Lizzy’s first appearance, where it was made clear that an inordinate amount of tech went into making her look like a human. A very pretty human, but human. There is none of that here. But both scenes suggest mutability as one of her defining features - even more so when put side by side.

The sign says “CHROME” btw. Probably the name of the show (can’t read the subtitle -”WAsomething”). Polished chrome, of course, being a very traditional aesthetic staple of cyberpunk. Also perhaps worth noting: at least at first glance, none of the frenetic fans are heavily augmented. Might be for security reasons, but with the ubiquity of implants I think it’s more likely the scene takes place in a posh neighborhood.

On second glace, her dress does not feature a top. Yes, there will be nudity (from what I hear, even full frontal nudity, male and female). Cyborg nudity is always a weird thing. There’s always the uncanny valley aspect, but also ... honestly, when I’ve seen someone detach half their face, there is nothing more intimate they can show me.

[thefalloutscrolls]

Right, so this is the “let’s fuck some shit up” part of the trailer. The whole thing is sort of heavy-handed in that regard. (Not to worry, it’s only a trailer.)

I’m not much of a car or gun guy, but I love me some magnetism (who doesn’t?). I’ve seen people saying this is probably some sort of railgun ... no, it’s most definitely a rail gun. It has no barrel, it has extending rails, and it says “Magrail” on the side :-P

As far as vehicles go, I have yet to play a game where I like driving. I can always walk though, eh? As an aside, the car was referred to as the Roachster in design. Which is the best bad pun I’ve heard in ages.

The huge building complex on the right is sporting the ubiquitous Arasaka logo. Even more interestingly though, that’s the Orbital Air Space Center (also seen on the Metro map).

[thefalloutscrolls]

This is one wildly evocative scene. I bloody love it.

I could write a few pages about it but it would most likely be more an essay inspired by it rather than a spot-on interpretation. I will say that out of everything we have seen so far, this scene is the most cyberpunky.

I think it’s safe to assume that we’re looking at Lizzy Wizzy (”Lizzy Wizzy in Awards Show Scandal!”) here. Judging from the writing in the background (”Lizzy and the Metsomething”), most likely a singer. And judging from the filename (screen-beautiful-and-deadly-en.jpg) not only a singer ... I’m not actually sure she’s human. I don’t see a functional equivalent of an esophagus in any case.

There’s also “Terror at Teen Concert” as well as the all-important “Makeup Trends” (The screen/mirror shows her color pallet, btw.)

I can’t make out the headline on the lower left though. “Another *alen* (Talent?) something Pacifica”. (Pacifica is an upper-class residential suburb in Night City.)

Also, see those eyebrows? Just like V’s ...