Recently my girlfriend and I planned a trip to our nations capital. I was very excited to walk around the Mall and see the monuments and beautiful buildings. But as we were traveling toward DC on the Metro a funny thing happened. I started to think of Fallout 3 and all of the wonderful hours spent running through the digital version of those very subway tunnels. I started to get excited in a very different way. I was about to explore the Capital Wasteland in real life, but, you know, pre-nucular destruction (let's hope that never actually happens).

My giddy nerdom really sank in upon reaching the L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station. Spending many hours sneaking through the massive hub while exploring the Wasteland, I couldn't contain my excitement that it was actually real. I'm pretty sure my girlfriend discovered I was nuts as I tried to explain why I was intently studying the Metro map trying to find the 'Presidential Metro' (which doesn't exist, at least not on public maps). When we reached our destination, Federal Station SW near the Capitol Complex, I had to take a picture. The arches were just as I had remembered it. I was slightly in awe of the detail that Bethesda put into the game but was more in awe that I was actually in the place I had spent so many hours. It was a very cool feeling.



As we took the escalator toward the surface, I half expected to see gore bags hanging from ceilings and stumble upon a group of Super Mutants. Obviously that didn't happen and while exploring the beauty that is the actual Capitol Complex my dreams of seeing the Wasteland quickly disappeared, but it didn't mean I quit looking. As we walked into the Museum of Natural History I was looking for the Underworld exhibit while my girlfriend looked for talking army men. Upon entering the small Lincoln Memorial visitors room at the bottom of the steps I was looking to take out the head Slaver while my girlfriend was looking for the bathroom.

In the some twenty years I've been playing games, I've never played one quite like Fallout 3. It was so immersive and so completely -- and accurately -- detailed, that visiting Washington DC invoked memories of actually having been there before, although in a slightly different manner. It was a very strange but satisfying feeling. Upon returning home I had to fire up the 360 and return to the Wasteland just to roam the deserted Mall and Capitol Building one more time. Considering my experience in DC, I can't wait to again give myself to Bethesda and their immersive world of New Vegas.