PC Game Fun Time

On Thanksgiving, I arrived at my parents’ home a bit earlier than the rest of the family, so I had quite a bit of free time. I used most of it — four hours worth — to read Cormac McCarthy’s excellent post-apocalyptic novel The Road straight through in one go. It narrates a couple of months in the life of a father and son who have survived an unspecified apocalypse, but every description in the book — from bright flashes on the horizon during the incident, to the dusty, sunless world, to the skyscrapers in city centers whose metal frames were melted and then solidified back into torturedshapes — left me believing that this Armageddon was of the decidedly nuclear variety.

Naturally, on the day after Thanksgiving, I started playing Fallout 3, which is (as if you didn’t know by now) set in a post-nuclear-apocalyptic future. I must say, reading The Road was a great thematic introduction to the environment in Fallout 3, even so much as dealing with the some of the same tropes of cannibalism, scarce resources, and morality in a survivalist world that no longer has a place for it. Walking along decrepit ancient highways in the barren Capital Wasteland, with its gloomy skies and shattered landscapes, and picking through the wreckage of a former civilization, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was walking the same road as the main characters in the novel.

I will give The Road more points for being realistic, because just one decade after the apocalypse pretty much everything scavengeable is gone and the only food remaining is the occasional canned good or fellow human. Fallout 3, despite taking place two centuries further out from the apocalypse, is still full of pre-apocalypse goods, such as the bizarrely ubiquitous Nuka-Cola vending machines that still contain product. Oh, and there’s the mutants. But I’ll let this slide — The Road’s intent is to be a good novel, while Fallout 3’s intent is to be a fun game. Some concessions to gameplay are necessary and acceptable.

I’ve only reached level 5 so far (after quite a bit of time put into the game), but my overall impression is very positive. I pretty much agree with Grokmoo’s take on the game, and could potentially see myself playing it as much as he has. The game is superbly put together, and thanks to auto-travel, there’s never a boring moment (I’m looking at you, Far Cry 2). It’s also not too easy — I’ve had to make use of quick load on quite a few occasions — which is something I appreciate because most of the games I’ve played recently I’ve been able to steamroll through without much of a challenge at all.

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