[zombiekill13 talks about how Fallout 3 really sucked him into the experience. -- CTZ]
Before I begin, there are going to be spoilers. If you haven't finished the game, or haven't completed a full good/neutral/evil run, be forewarned.
I finally finished Fallout 3 ... again. Thanks to the DLC, I went back in multiple times. Completed Operation: Anchorage, the Pitt, and Broken Steel; explored Point Lookout; got my character up to level 30 and got all of the achievements. The last time I checked, I was at 102 hours of gameplay.
So, until the Mothership Zeta DLC is released, I figured I'd start up a new character and play through a little bit. This time around, I decided to create a character who was the opposite of my main one; where that one was male and insanely good, this one would be an evil female. And since I really should move on to other games, I figured I'd give myself a goal: blow up Megaton.
It really is a blight on the landscape, isn't it?
While I took the "good" path with my first character, I did try out a few of the evil choices; did the "Strictly Business" quest, achieved the Evil and Neutral achievements, shot Agatha and Three-Dog dead, saw what happens when I went on a killing spree in Megaton and Big Town. But, I always reverted back to a prior save so these events didn't stick with my character; it was kinda like seeing a "what if" comic in action, or as if he were dreaming about the events.
So, asploding Megaton seem like a good checkpoint. Figure I'll do that, since I've only seen it done in YouTube videos, and then decide if I want to continue or (finally) play another game.
I started this one early; she was rude to the guests at her party and to her dad, she started swinging at Butch and his gang even before talking to them while they were harassing Amata, and during the Vault 101 escape, I shot everyone I could, even the Overseer.
I did feel a little bad when Amata chastised me for killing her dad, as well as for taking him out with a police baton. It was a stark contrast to my first game, where she seemed sad that I had to leave the vault. This time, she kept telling me she was going to call the guards, or that she wanted to make sure I left. But hey, I was keeping with my choice to be a bastard (well, bitch). I smacked her with my baseball bat and then shot her a few times with my BB gun before leaving. Give her something to remember me by.
Exiting the vault, I headed to Silver's house. Last time around, I told her I wouldn't tell Moriarty where she was. I think I even declined to accept caps from her, which slightly hindered my initial progress (not a lot to sell on me meant I had to scavenge a lot). As I entered her house this time around, she confronted me, and I chose whatever option causes her to become hostile immediately. She went down way too easy. With this one, I didn't feel too bad. She's such a minor character that I really didn't care if she lived or died. You meet her this one time, and then, that's it.
Sorry, toots. All you're good for is caps ... and you're worth 400 if you're dead.
After hitting the Raider mini-camp on the broken bridge nearby, I made my way to Megaton, intent on blowing the town sky-high.
Problem is, I started to have doubts about my decision.
Yes, it's a videogame, but in my first play-through, this town became my (virtual) home. I saved the citizens by diffusing the bomb, ensuring that it would not go off and wipe them all off the map. I assisted Moira in creating the best Wasteland survival guide; it was so good that I'd run into people in the Wasteland who would would give me caps as thanks, and Three-Dog said it was a must-read. I'd visit Gob and sell him the alcohol I found in my travels. People would walk up to me and give me gifts for the work I was doing. I fixed up the water pipes so the town would not experience problems later on, and then kept giving Walter a steady supply of scrap metal to keep the pipes in working order. I made sure that, during a side-quest in Broken Steel, a creepy ghoul-loving cult wouldn't steal the town's Aqua Pura supply. I even rid the town of that creep Burke.
Choosing to set off the nuke and kill off everyone I essentially befriended in another "life" turned out to be a more difficult decision than I thought. How crazy is that? It's a game. I know that the "people" in it are basically lines of code, with pre-determined responses and movements. A programmer sat at a computer and designed them. And honestly, they aren't the most-life like; when engaged in a conversation, their movements are more akin to a robotic human you'd see at an amusement park ... like Disney's Hall of Presidents.
He's either stoned, or a robot. Or both.
But here it is; I became so engrossed in this game that I began to envision them as living, breathing people. People who went about their lives while I was out exploring the world. What were they doing during my abscence. Did Moira tick anyone else off with her condescending attitude? Was Nova bedding as many of the residents as she could, or was she waiting for me to make a weekly visit? Was the sheriff taking care of a drunken Jericho who was making advances on a reluctant Lucy?
It's insane that a game can make the player feel this way. There are plenty of games that I've played where I could give a rat's ass about what happened to the character's in it, whether it was due to a poorly written story or I just didn't feel any attachment to the characters. Saints Row 2? Great game, not the greatest characterization. I could care less about who I mowed down with a machine gun or car, and felt nothing whatsoever between my character and their homies. They were usually just in the way of my wanton violence. Fable II? You could get anyone in Albion to kiss your butt by dancing, laughing, and farting. I'd go on a murderous spree, sleep for a week, and everyone would be back to loving me.
Sure, same thing happens in Fallout 3; kill a few people in Rivet City, escape the wrath of the security force, wait a few days, and everyone acts like nothing happened. But, I think what it comes down to is that I am able to interact with these people. I can choose what to say to them, besides watching a scripted cutscene or giving them a gift and a quick thrust of my hips. There are various ways of communicating with them, and while these selections are pre-written, it still gives me the freedom to react as I would with an actual human being.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd get so absorbed in my virtual Fallout world that I would shun family and friends, but it's pretty impressive that a game can do this to me; I'm not just starting it up and shooting things. I'm making moral decisions that will affect the world the game inhabits.
And the one I'm wrestling over happens pretty much as soon as you exit the "home" you've "grown up" in for "19 years" (lots of quotes there, huh?).
I may never actually witness this, thanks to my conscience.
Anyone else experience this, either with this game or another? I could make a long list of games that have had the same sort of impact, but I figured I'd go with the most recent one.
Contest:
7:00 PM on 07.09.2009
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... and I have a hard time playing "evil" and can only do it in short spurts. It's much more difficult to play evil if you've already played the game as good because you're right, you get attached to your home and the people. :(
(I should have first played the game as evil, rather than good... it might have been easier!)
And I agree; there should be more of these types of decisions. For the most part, you know what's going to happen when you select a speech option.
I agree; I too will usually travel down the "good" path, even if I try to be evil. I'll normally end up feeling bad for shooting a shop owner in the face just so I can loot their store. I guess it's just the way I am, which I suppose is nothing to be ashamed about.
And yes...should've gone bad first. Or at least made a save file where I could've seen Megaton explode so I could reload it and not feel so bad. It was all a joke! See, the town is still standing, and I killed Burke and Tenpenny! ;)
Fallout should NOT be so immersive that I could easily set off a Nuke and kill a town filled with strangers, Moira and Glob but could care about the environment of some scraps of civilisation or what some Slavers do with Abe Lincoln's statue.
You wanna know what happened to them? Look in the Tenpenny basement.
My problem with Fallout is that all the evil moral choices are things you would only do IF you just wanted to be just a straight-up asshole. Other than that, there's no real incentive. You can usually get better rewards for doing good things and on top of that you won't feel bad about any of it. But I still have to applaud the sheer amount of freedom it gives you, sure, all the quests have to be done in one way or another, but the ways you do them and the results of such are so creative and sometimes shocking that it was my easy pick for GOTY 2008.
**DLC SPOILERS**
I would've appreciated more choices like The Pitt's: A gray choice where someone gets fucked either way, and the game doesn't tell you which one was right because it doesn't give or take away any karma after the quest is done. People applauded Point lookout for having a morally ambiguous decision, but that wasn't moral at all - it was just "okay which guy do you like better?" And even if you DID want to insert morality into it, one planned on controlling the minds of everyone on the island and started a cult that lobotomizes people - unintentionally, of course, but he still had the intent to start a cult. The other one is just kind of an asshole to you.
**DLC SPOILERS**
@Narishma
They are screenshots I "borrowed" off of the Internet. They got a bit resized here, or were resized elsewhere; hence the bluriness.
@Havoc Fang
I will admit that, at first, Megaton was just a safe-haven for me when I first stepped past it's gates. I'd go, sell some of my junk, and then head back out into the wastes for more scavenging. If I had gone from Simms to Burke right away, I may have decided to nuke it, just to see what it was like. And I did hold on to that detonator for a while. But by the time I got my explosives level high enough, I had already been sucked into the atmosphere of Megaton, and just couldn't bring myself to blow it up for some nutjob in a dirty suit.
@Trueflooddingo
Nearly forgot about that one. Here you are, thinking you've helped two sides come to terms with their differences, and whammo! The downtrodden ghouls kill the humans. Was it a good decision (hey, the humans were discriminating against the ghouls and being pricks) or bad (you got some of the people to see past their prejudice, only to have what they feared would happen come to pass)?
@DJP3DRO
You're right. It would have been nice to have more morally grey choices, or "slightly evil", and not just straight-up good/evil with the occasional "meh" selection thrown in. And yeah, the choices for good were basically "save the puppy" and the evil was "kill the puppy and all of its siblings and mother" (not an actual choice, but you get the idea).
They should have also made the bad choices occasionally grant better rewards, just to see what the player would do. Using Megaton as an example, you could spare it, get the caps from Simms and the key to the house, or blow it up, get the Tenpenny suite and ownership of a shop in the tower, granting you X amount of caps every day...something that would make it a little more morally difficult.
@Holyetheline
I'm considering doing that. I'll create a save before deciding to blow up Megaton, and once I do, switch back and just keep the town intact...but still go down the evil path, should I decide to continue playing at that point.
@Cataract
Thanks! Would be cool to see this as a front page story, but I'm fine where it's at. I had just "finished" my MC and started up the second one when I thought of writing something up about the moral dilemmas the game poses. I wanted to see what others did/think.
megatons destruction had a similar effect, but since i wasn't being begged not to kill everyone in the town i was somewhat less bothered about the whole thing.
after that, pretty much nothing in the game managed to have any real effect on me. it's not that i'd been desensitised or stopped caring, i just felt that the moral choice thing played out within the first hour and then basically disappeared.
Good write up!
I still haven't picked up Fallout 3, but it's blogs like this that make me really REALLY want to get it. This is a beautiful piece of writing. Keep up the good work sir.
I'll admit that the majority of the choices after the Megaton defuse/detonate don't have the "umph" that that one does, but there are still plenty of them that did make me stop and think about what I was about to do (like the Tenpenny situation).
@ShuperShawn
...and there's an example of the game letting you be as evil as you want to be :)
@pendelton21
Thanks!!!
Fallout 3 is an awesome game. It's got something for almost every gamer: action, RPG elements, FPS-gameplay, puzzles...
It does, however, have a fair share of bugs; but with everything that has been put into the game, I can see where the programmers would have a difficult time fixing everything. Some are minor annoyances, some can mess up a quest (make sure you keep multiple saves). Don't let that scare you, though; it's an amazing game that has already sucked 100+ hours of my life away.
but yeah i suppose i might be slightly more easily immersed in games than other people, not that its all bad of course.
Play the first Fallout's dude, the story is 1500% better than the one of Fo3.
Anyway two choices that made me think: First was the Tenpenny Tower one as i discovered in the perfect way. I went back to trade in some drugs and junk and saw that there was no non ghouls downstairs. I asked the girl shopkeeper who wasn't helpful then asked the other shop keeper who said Roy had dealt with them. I went to speak to Roy for the truth and he explained it as "not everyone is innocent kid" I was freaking furious! I had bore with the fact i sacraficed half the hotel to the wastes as they just couldn't live with them, I bore with the fact that Tenpenny himself was smashed against a wall and shoved down the drain (he wern't too bad but he was a bit barmy) but the death of the nice caring people like Dashwood and Gustov got me so angry i slaughtered them all. Somehow recieving bad karma. In the end i took away from it that some people despite acting like victims due to disabilities are scum and i should wipe them from the fact of the fallout world.
The second was the confrontation outside megaton with the brotherhood when giving out water. I didn't realize you could speak to them and so when the brotherhood wasted them all i was horrified. Would they get water? Would megaton be destroyed? Should i side against the brotherhood? Then i talked to them and it was all ok. Shorter than Tenpenny but made me think just as hard.
Weird when you give pixels a name and a voice and the ability to shoot their faces off i prefer to keep em alive...
for the rest of the game, I like it when people tell me how awesome I am.
I'm talking about Fable 2 by the way. I want to play Fallout 3, never got
around to it...
Especially the Pitt. Fuck Werhner. I may have blown up a town, sicced ghouls on a tower of bigots, used missile control towers to fire off the remaining caches, and turned everyone I could into Paradise falls, but dammit, I am not going to condemn a child to that. I wasn't going to kill Harold either. He was the first touching character I'd encountered in the game, and I aimed to keep him going.
p.s if anyonehas a good enough computer I recommend you get this game on the PC mods make it absolutely perfect (try "FOOK" at the least guys).
I had a few of these moments in Oblivion, though usually because I screwed up and attacked someone or stole something in plain sight then had to massacre a load of people to make my get away. I didn't want to kill them all, heck they were just doing their jobs, but it was them or me and I wasn't going down that easy.
The Witcher was also really good at giving you options that seemed pretty confusing and could lead to some bad misunderstandings with your friends if you choose wrong. I'm really looking forward to these gray moral choices in future titles.
But one of the things that Fallout 3 resembles life the most is - you can't have everything. Also, you can't expect things to happen the way you want all the time.
I'm perfeccionist in real life, and it sucks... But in the game I just learned how to deal with it. You have to accept it. I made a connection with my character and realized that this is not the world as I know. "There's some serious shit in here, and I gotta learn how to live with that." Brilliant game! The best of my collection.
Destroying Megaton was difficult, but not impossible, only because it did feel bad killing these folks and knowing they'd never be around (for game purposes, but that's a way of feeling bad for ending a virtual person's life anyway). At the end I just felt drained from all the evil I'd been doing. When I was luring kids out of Little Lamplight to get sent to Paradise Falls as slaves, I figured I was done with being evil.
The world's so much nicer when you're good-aligned, I was surprised. I thought I'd have to just suck up people's disdain and try to be nice, apparently they were just like that becuase I was a right bastard.
I'm also sick of begrudgingly refusing rewards because it's what a good person would do. I really wanted Harkness' awesome plasma rifle.
But...like many of you I have an irritating sense of morality that prevents me from playing as a purely evil character. Thus, depsite previously scoffing at being "neutral" it's kinda become my favourite way to play. Because I'm totally selfish and want nice things but I'm still a good person...
However, I'd like to respond to Chronic Logic's comment.
See, you can look at it like that: it's just a game. I'm going to play it, do the quests, and get from point A to point B as quick as I can so I can move on to the next game.
But to me, that means missing out on an amazing experience. Sure, it's virtual. And yeah, maybe instead of playing a game I could go climb a mountain or go scuba-diving off some tropic island.
But I chose to play a game, and I'm going to allow myself to be immersed in it. And I feel that a game like this, where the world is populated with characters that (for the most part) have their own personality, it's easier to do that.
Also, to those that suggested the first two Fallout games: I have been meaning to get to them. My little brother has copies of them...I'll get to them eventually :)
I made a second character, Betty the Badlands Bitch, and she is evil to the core. When I blew up Megaton with her, I felt....loss, sadness, and a little bit of "I love big booms" joy. It made a lot of the other evil decisions much easier to make, but man it took me a minute or two to hit that button.
I find at the start its actually best to try and be neutral and buy the mr. gutsy. He is so helpful in the early game with his plasma rifle. That said after completing anchorage and getting the chinese stealth suit with the perforator (silenced machine gun) from the pitt, my character can shoot at almost anything without getting in danger mode even if im standing right next to them. Sorta like 100 chameleon in oblivion. Only time i get in danger is if the creature runs right into me and only sometimes. Once that creature is dead then back to caution or hidden.