20XX's Seventh Gen Favs #1 - Fallout 3

Fallout 3 had a thread of narrative woven through it. Identity established through statistic choices and facial feature sliders, you were set free to plod along through the ruins of Washington DC. Your main quest was to find your missing father, puzzling out his movements following an escape from an isolationist nuclear shelter. These breadcrumbs drove the game on, unlocking new areas and enemies. If you got pally with the locals, they'd offer distraction tasks that got you exploring. These missions taught you to be patient and methodical, instructing you in the basic tools of post-apocalyptic survival. Those avenues exhausted, it was up to you to create and discover your own adventure. Doggedly follow the father quest line and eventually it'd stall the title dead with a disappointing pay-off that had to be retconned through DLC.

That's Fallout 3's narrative, but it wasn't the story. It wasn't the game. Fallout was the land, and all the people in it. Fallout was wandering around a God forsaken rubble pit, stumbling across decrepit buildings and traumatised survivors. Although framed by a binary morality system, Fallout 3 frequently put the players in positions with no obvious solutions. If you found your way to the Tenpenny Tower luxury hotel you'd be confronted by a turf war between two equally unappealing factions. You couldn't do right for doing wrong. Throw in with the bigot who ran the place and he'd ask you to vaporise a thriving human settlement because he considered it an eyesore. Side with the gang of idealistic zombies and the tower's innocent human inhabitants would end up dead and stuffed into a cellar. This idea of moral uncertainty was the cornerstone of Fallout: New Vegas, a semi-sequel that relished compromise and missed opportunities.

The Fallout experience was rifling through pip-pip computer records, uncovering solemn accounts of post-war hardship. The sunken Vaults scattered about DC were an explorers paradise. Layers upon layers of burnt out living space, each housing secrets more terrible than the last. You could make allies out of dogs and mutants, and then be stuck trying to keep them out of trouble. Fallout 3 was wandering, plundering, discovering. The player as a cultural archaeologist, digging deep into the paranoid psychological state that facilitated the world's devastation. If you ever wanted to ride with The Road Warrior, or found the idea of investigating Los Angeles 2029 appealing, this was the game for you.

The Entertainment Capital of the Wasteland

Tease for Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout 3 follow-up, Fallout: New Vegas. Looks like Nevada's favourite night-out dodged a Chinese warhead. Due Autumn, New Vegas simply has to re-skin Fallout 3's morality muddles to get me on board. Vegas as a wasteland sin beacon has mileage; hopefully the developers have happened upon Pat Mills and Mike McMahon's pertinent portions of Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth. They imagined Vegas as a nihilistic total bet, run by mutated mobsters with a taste for tank battling. Some of that please.

Disaster Year 2008: Fallout 3

Fallout 3 tracks the complete lifetime of a messianic scavenger. Born to a super-scientist in an isolationist underground community, you live your fragile years through a personality snatch best-of reel. Stats and physical make-up sliders finished with, your adult doll stumbles out of its relative safety bubble into what's left of Washington DC. You'll have the outline of an individual, attributes and attitude established through rationed skill points, but nothing indelible. Your task is to craft a personality through experience. Alone in a hostile wasteland, what will you do to survive? Who will you help? Who will you kill? Players are offered a bare thread of narrative, tracking a wayward father, but there's no hurry. There are ramshackle communities of brutalised loners to discover. Get pally and they'll offer distraction tasks that get you exploring. These missions teach you to be patient and methodical, instructing you in the basic tools of post-apocalyptic survival. Those avenues exhausted, it's up to you to create and discover your own adventure. It can be about helping to bring a sustainable water source to what's left of civilisation if you choose. It can equally be about butchering and cannibalising those weaker than you. It's up to you. It's your hell.

Dazzle! Excitement! Fallout!

While we're on the subject: for your viewing pleasure, an absolutely stunning Fallout 3 machinima, posted by YouTube user agoministrator. It's The Capital Wasteland struggles filtered through scale-model pyrotechnics and 70s policer macho melodrama. Glorious dead zone heroes trample brain-bot antagonism! Team ethos collectivism! Collision zoom eyecatches! This one's got 'em all. Sound, desperately required. Fallout 3 TV Drama Edition!

Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage

Bethesda Game Studios' first expansion pack release for Fallout 3 is a contrary addition to the rad-blast landscape. Operation Anchorage junks the scavenge root dynamic of the main game, instead focusing on bread crumb action adventuring. Drawn to a lethal military simulator by a strangled distress call, players enter an impression construct of a decisive pre-nuclear exchange battle. Inside the total immersion video game, players are treated to a wilfully limited culture clash sortie: weapons are distributed and maintained by red blinking vending machines, enemies digitally crumble after defeat, and invisible walls prevent off-mission exploration. Is Operation Anchorage an interactive critique? An attempt to expose action game survival furniture as spell-breaking distraction? Or just a series of easily identifiable signposts to mark the game-within-a-game structure?

The contrast between Anchorage's assistance sign-posting, and The Capital Wasteland's desperate scrounging couldn't be blunter. Bethesda have pared their explore engine down to a tight Black Ops jaunt, players emboldened by a generous difficulty nose-dive and access to overwhelming force. Coupling time-freeze VATS aiming with low-yield Chinese armour makes Anchorage a lubricated jaunt, full of head-popping anti-resistance. This is the problem: by presenting Operation Anchorage as a separate sale expansion item, Bethesda have asked the user to judge the title on its own, limited, merits. Anchorage would have been best served as an on-disc side-quest. There, this brisk homage to tactical espionage would have shone as a welcome narrative diversion.

Disaster Year: 2008 Awards - Most Detailed Wasteland: Fallout 3

Most Detailed Wasteland: Fallout 3

Fallout 3 has a thread of narrative woven through it. You plod along after your missing father, puzzling out his movements after he escaped the isolationist Vault 101. The breadcrumbs drive the game on, unlocking new areas and enemies, and eventually stall the title dead with a disappointing pay-off. That's Fallout 3's narrative, but it ain't the story. The story's the land, and all the people in it. The story is wandering around a God forsaken rad blasted rubble pit, stumbling across decrepit buildings and traumatised survivors. The story is rifling through pip-pip computer records, uncovering solemn accounts of post-war hardship. The story is uncovering other sunken Vaults, each more terrible than the last. The story is making allies of dogs and mutants, and trying to keep them out of trouble. That's Fallout 3's story: wandering. Plundering. Discovering.