A possibility? What the fuck? Hopefully the reviewer is just an incompetent, that is, after all, less frightening than the idea that Bethsoft has painted themselves into a corner in designing the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System for ranged attacks only and not considering a way to pause-screen into it during melee combat.GameSpy wrote:...but to prevent you from just abusing the heck out of V.A.T.S., and in a throwback to the turn-based combat of the previous games, each shot in V.A.T.S. costs Action Points. In the demo we saw, each shot took about three APs and the player had nine total, meaning he could try for three aimed shots at any moment. Howard said they're still futzing with the exact system, but at the moment, AP automatically recharges over time when playing in real-time (with the recharge speed dictated by the player's Agility stat), but that recharge rate is slowed down a bit when you're just shooting stuff. Additionally, all the combat we saw is gun-based, but Howard did comment that melee combat (and we saw the "unarmed" skill listed in the character screen) is still a possibility.
How could that possibly work, anyhow? The game refuses to pause while you have a melee weapon equipped unless you are within 2 feet of an enemy? A crazy matrix slow motion cutscene of you breaking the distance after queueing your attacks from a distance? Not being able to use AP for movement might just queer the whole deal.
Also, supposing they actually find a way to implement melee combat into V.A.T.S., the way I understand the system is that after your queued action and the slow motion bullet time sequence you are thrown back into real time combat. How could the transition from slow motion "d00d!" footage to a super mutant beating you feverishly with a hydrant not be awkward?
Hell, this is all speculation and from what I've read not even the development team really has a firm grasp on exactly what the fuck V.A.T.S is, what it will be or how it works, so who knows?
