Nuclear Addiction – Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is a thing of magnificence, an absolute solid-gold gem. If you don’t know, it’s a role-playing game set after a nuclear apocalypse sometime later in the 21st century. You get a weird sense of what humanity became, and how it was all destroyed. And you get to start again, this time in a wasteland dotted with survivors, mutants, beasts and most-importantly memories.
My early experiences of the game were mixed. I wandered around fairly aimlessly, managed to miss the highlights of the game in my first few hours, and was on the point of giving up (very similar to Far Cry 2, another gem from last year). Tenpenny Towers changed my mind, and I’ve been on the march ever since. I dread to think of the hours I have put in – it’s one of those games that are so good that the rest of life has had to take a back-seat while I play it.
The game is easy to dismiss. The headline experience is so uninspiring – the main storyline is the worst set of quests in the game, most of them rather meaningless trudges along fairly linear paths. The combat is never quite satisfying, with a bog-standard first-person shooter mechanic, presented along with a time-stopping aiming feature (called VATS) that only serves to highlight the frustrations of your character’s poor accuracy. The best approach to combat seems to be to run up close and shotgun your opponents in the face. It also has dialogue trees – a massive black mark for any game, and another problem best solved by a shotgun to the face (either theirs or your own).
Not only that but the game experience is bugged and deeply uneven. Characters will act in strange ways, or not be where they are supposed to be. Your companions will trigger into aggression at the wrong time, killing a bunch of friendlies in the process. Anything action-oriented just looks wrong – the player models are too rigid, any of the movement in the game often feels like watching cardboard cut-outs moving on strings. The engine is something you have to get over to stand any chance of enjoying the game.
But there is so much to enjoy – my imagination is so inspired by the people I’ve met, and the situations I’ve had to deal with. I saved a town from a vampire threat through simple diplomacy – I felt slightly disturbed at placating a group dedicated to drinking human blood, but hey that’s politics. Going through an abandoned cola bottle plant I learned about the deadly results of the company’s search for a new ‘nuclear’ flavour. I hunted down an android unaware of their own nature, but in the spirit of Blade Runner I let them live. I found a group of tree-worshippers, and killed their god to try and wake them up a bit – I was forced to wonder whether even a false god can bring practical benefits to a community.
Better still is the life I didn’t lead in this game. I’m fascinated to know if I can join the vampires. Or join the slaving community and catch a bunch of the characters for money. Best of all, I turned down the option to nuke the town that I lived in – what happens if I trigger the bomb instead? Talk about a thirst for evil, though I don’t see it as pure evil – it’s a reaction to circumstances after all, it’s all about survival. Some of the things I’ve done in the name of good I feel deeply uncomfortable with – perhaps the evil way will be the right thing to do at times.
There are 100 plus locations in the game, linked by seamless wasteland between, and most locations have a story. Most too, are not connected to the actual main story, or even the side-quests – they are simply places you might chance upon and decide to explore. There is an abandoned school that I plan to explore tonight – inside I will find some forgotten story, perhaps a community trying to survive, perhaps just a bunch of raiders. Perhaps all three.
What really makes the game breathe is the idea that this land exists while the game is switched on. I read about a bug today – if you enslave and imprison a gun vendor called Flak, his business partner will wander the wasteland searching for his friend, because the game scripting demands that they be close. This sort of thing is not only weird, it’s almost unnerving. While I am doing whatever I am doing, all the other characters in the game are doing what they do. When a character dies, they are dead here – whatever function they served in the game is now over. It gives a real weight to every action you take, and really underlines the fact that this virtual life is exactly what you make it.
And there is no sense of security or safety in Fallout 3 – it is a raw, and often depressing experience. It is a pessimistic homage to the self-destructive abilities of mankind – not that you would expect to find hope and positive energy from a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I suppose the idea is that the only positive force here is you – can you, by your own actions, save humanity, ie give a good example amongst so many bad ones.
I can really dig a game that really, truly, asks you what you are and what you want to be, and puts you in the exact right position to prove it by your actions. This is a great, great game, probably the best of last or any year.
[rating: 5]
(I shall be playing the original Fallout from ’97 to see how the experience was presented in the isometric days 12 years ago.)
[...] is it that makes me still play Fallout 3? I’m approaching platinum-trophy status now on the PS3 version – I have absolutely played [...]