In a 1UP interview with editors Jeff Green and Shawn Elliot, Bethesda's Pete Hines talked about the sophistication of the karma system we'll see in Fallout 3, saying if a player kills someone for no good reason, but that person turns out to be a mass murderer "we don't want to do that, we want the player [...] to get bad karma." Also, the game is going to start out with you being born and playing the game as a baby for awhile, learning to walk and all that stuff... Wow.

Jeff Green: I've played a lot of games in my life, and a lot of weird games, and a lot of weird games that have had weird beginnings. But I don't know if I've ever played a game that started with me emerging from my mother's womb.

Shawn Elliot: Prey's sphincters are as close as I've come, but sure, Fallout 3's "opening" moments are more than a perineum away. I'm sorry. I really wrote that. Seriously, though, the cunning way that Bethesda takes the thinking behind traditional tutorials and character creation interfaces and naturally integrates these game conventions into the game's narrative is impressive. You crawl around a playpen in first-person perspective; you press a button to cry and call for daddy; you learn about strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, and other RPG traits by browsing children's books -- has any game truly attempted to tell the story of a life from birth to death?

chautemoc via 1up.com »