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Fallout 3: This is the way the world ends
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Fallout 3 is the latest epic, enormous role playing game from Bethesda Softworks, creators of the critically acclaimed Elder Scrolls series and now custodians of the equally lauded Fallout series, previously developed by Black Isle Studios. In it, you play as a young man known only as the Vault Dweller, a character who is on a quest through the post-nuclear ruins of Washington, D.C. to find his missing father. Along the way you'll encounter every post apocalyptic movie trope to come out of American pop culture in the last fifty years. This includes giant ants, radioactive lizards, zombies, renegade robots, bomb worshipping cults and of course, the bedraggled remnants of the U.S. government. The game plays like a strangely deformed cross between an FPS (First Person Shooter) and an RPG (Role Playing Game). When you choose to initiate combat the game will pause, allowing you to pick which exact part of an enemy creature you want to shoot (head, arm, leg, etc). Once you've chosen, the Vault Dweller will raise his weapon and fire. From there, statistics like your character's skill with his weapon and his distance from the target determine whether you actually score a hit. A warning for people shopping for children: Fallout 3 is almost pornographically violent. Case in point? Once you've chosen which part of an enemy to attack, time slows down within the game and everything starts to look very much like 'The Matrix.' You can see individual bullets moving slowly through the air, and whatever body parts get hit explode like water baloons filled with raw blood sausage. While admittedly satisfying the first time it happens, after the fourth or fifth time it starts to feel a little gratuitous..jpg)
Imagine a world where everything Marvel Comics ever wrote about radiation was true. Instead of killing people, it could grant them superhuman abilities, transform them into mindless, raging mutants able to crush cars with their fists, and create armies of giant ravenous insects. Imagine that the people of this world, despite having made incredible technological leaps (nuclear fuel cell cars, household robots just like the ones in the movies) never made it past the 1950s culturally. As a result, the Cold War lasts well into the 21st century, culminating in an apocalyptic nuclear exchange. Some people who were well-to-do enough to buy their way into corporate fallout shelters called vaults, manage to survive, but when they return to the surface, they find a world in ruins. This is the world of Fallout 3.
The graphics in this game are exellent. Everything looks amazingly detailed. For instance, there's a little rock outcropping not far from where your character first emerges from the vault, and by standing on it you can see for a great distance across the wasteland. It was a pretty cool moment, standing there looking out across miles of burnt wreckage and the remnants of little '50s style suburban enclaves as little floating microphones blared patriotic music and wartime propaganda. The soundtrack, which consists of '40s and '50s era Jazz and Pop music, also serves to create an interesting contrast between it's own happy, perky nature and the extreme violence onscreen.
The game has it's problems, though. For instance, the characters look like wax dolls and despite having Hollywood talent attached, the voice acting is often forced and wooden. Ultimately, the main quest is unsatisfying, but the interesting things you'll encounter throughout the game make up for that a bit. These include:
- An order of technophilic knights attempting to restore society through preserving knowlege
- A lesbian zombie couple (To find this out, you must talk to both of them.)
- A society of prepubescent children a la Peter Pan
- A commie-hating giant robot
- A situation which can only be described as 'Pleasantville' meets 'The Matrix'
- A madman with a personal army of giant Fire Ants
- A robot that thinks it's Thomas Jefferson,
- A cadre of vampires living in the remnants of the D.C. Metro
Sounds interesting, doesn't it?
So, if you can handle the gratuitous violence and wierd looking characters I'd give it a shot.
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