Fallout 3 and the Power of an Intro

Welcome one, welcome all, to another postess by your hostess with the mostess, Rachel May! Today, dear reader, yet again we have something very different! We will be discussing video games, and more particularly, a video game very important to me, Fallout 3. When it comes to video games, I mainly play more artsy stuff, or anime games, really Fallout 3 should theoretically be the opposite of the kind of game that I enjoy.

If you put the kinds of things I enjoy in video games, Fallout 3 would probably check nearly none of the boxes. Its dark, its grimy, it has a weak main story, its a shooter (bleh), but for some reason all of it together just works for me in a way Im not sure any other game has. Something about it feels truly lived in, like an actual world.

I have played many video games, dear reader. Many open world video games too, in fact. And something that consistently these types of games get wrong is that none of them ever feel like a world. I could argue there are completely linear games that feel more lived in than most open world games, like Cave Story or most of the Pokemon games. But, dear reader, Fallout 3 has something very simple going for it: its the end of the world. 

Of course the world would feel desolate, or uninhabitable, or empty, its because it is. The biggest issue in most open world games, something I dont think is even possible to solve, is something that Fallout 3 weaponizes to become one of its strongest aspects. Because of that, in  fact, the areas that are inhabited, that do show signs of life, feel especially special, whether with safety or danger. I especially enjoy the small, home-like feel of megaton. 

Despite it being rickety and barely holding together, the people in the town seem so full of hope and trust, something that seems entirely gone in a desolate wasteland such as in Fallout 3. The fact that its one of the first places you ever visit in the game makes it so much more impactful, since once you first leave the vault and see the sheer state of destruction, and immediately after meet those who wish to rebuild it, but in the center of it all, the thing that could cause their own destruction, rigged to possibly blow at any moment.

I kind of love the nuke quest in Megaton. Many people, in fact, talk about how its a "stupid moral choice" and this and that, but truthfully I think its something entirely different than a moral choice. Its supposed to make the player feel powerful. It is, in a way, showing how you hold the keys of life and death in your hands in a game such as this. Its arguably the first sidequest a player will stumble upon, and it sets the tone for the entire game. Save, or detonate. Life, or death. There are no centers in fallout 3, but rather it is a story of black and white. Good and evil, or, more accurately, good or evil.

I love this because its such an indirect, yet incredible way to introduce you to the themes the game wants to explore. That the world is in shambles, on the brink of delving completely into chaos, but on the other side, just as close to some sort of society. That you, in the middle, are the scales that can tip this world to chaos or beauty. People can say what they will about the games moral choices not meaning much for the ending of the game or whatever, but the story isnt even the point of the game. The point of the game is that you are the harbinger, of death or life now that is your choice.

I could get into mechanics or the other areas or the story and its flaws, but truthfully, maybe for now, this is a good enough place to stop it. I just wanted to talk about something I love, if only for a few moments. I will not take any more of those moments, dear reader.

So I ask: What did you think of Fallout 3, if you played it? And if not, what do you think of moral choices in interactive media?

-This is Rachel May, signing off for another day! May your skies be clear of gray in the life of this grand play