200 endings is not so crazy. Fallout 2 must have had at least that many once you tot up all the possibilities: almost every town/group (apart from Arroyo, Broken Hills, the Deathclaws of Vault 13, the Tanker Vagrants and Myron, as far as I remember) had at least two possible ending dialogues (New Reno had about 12, depending on which crime family you aided, which crime bosses you killed, whether you impregnated Bishops wife or daughter by having sex with them as a dude without using a condom, whether you infiltrated the Sierra Army Depot for Wright, whether you killed Myron, etc.). When you start totting up combinations, it is pretty clear to see how things happen.
There remains the remote possibility that this game could improve things from Fallout 2. I'll hold out on the design decisions: the first teaser trailer, with the valve radio and Hawaiian figurine, was pure Fallout, though I'll admit the Super Mutants look rather generic. Fallout always had some other elements mixing in with its retro-futurism, there was a heavy dose of 'punk' a la mad max (think of some of the armour designs, and some of the loading pictures, as examples) and we are seeing the Fallout world in much closer detail than we ever have before: they might still make this good. Of course, my concerns are that they will not keep the game open enough. I definitely would like to see the possibility of non-violent play via diplomacy and sneaking (the sneaking aspect could definitely be improved, it was pretty much useless in both the first two games). In fact, there remains the chance of making Fallout even more open. In the first two games, lots of the skills, traits and perks were basically junk, unless you specifically went out your way to roleplay a wierd character. I have a half-way done play of Fallout 2 atm, trying to play as a pyromaniac/explosives expert who favours thrown and heavy weapons, and it's maybe the hardest game of Fallout I've ever played. The roleplaying is great, but how about a game that actually rewards me for tagging Gambling, or Thrown, or Barter (or really any skills apart from Speech, Small Arms and Science). Also, I would love to see it so that being evil is equally as valid as being good. Sure, Fallout and Fallout 2 let you be an utter bastard, but nasty choices would consistently grant less XP, and in Fallout 2 you would even get heavily armed bounty hunters chasing you around if your karma dropped too low. This is fine for inducing extra difficulty on new playthroughs (the hardest way to play either of the first games is probably on hard difficulty, with an ugly, stupid character making evil choices) but come on.
Also, I am very upset about removing targeted groin and eye shots. These were like, the key to the whole fighting mechanic to me. I have fun memories of the boxing and kung-fu matches in Fallout 2, breaking my opponents arms then blinding them with eye shots and pounding them in the groin until they collapsed.
