I think the bug is in my mind.
Like many other recent RPGs, Fallout has an in-game morality system and a wide array of opportunities to put that morality into action. Find a lost, scared little child? Poke around and learn why he's alone and what you can do to help. Find a town full of people and their businesses and homes? Nuke it. I've been playing the game for awhile now and I'm still finding new and intriguing opportunities to change the in-game world with words and deeds.
The problem is that, for some reason, I find it difficult (impossible in some cases) to choose the morally "wrong" decision. Yes, the opportunity to nuke a town exists. But for whatever reason, I can't bring myself to do it. This is a new feeling - in Knights of the Old Republic, you could usually find me in the cantina, choking bar patrons with one hand and fighting good, honest Jedi with the other. The Dark Side held the power and the appeal - who wants to run around in boring brown robes when you can burst through the door in a black cloak wielding a double-edged crimson lightsaber? No, this "ethical dilemma" is wholly new.
Is it because of the improved graphics? Possibly - humans look more human, the suspension of disbelief is easier to make - but there are opportunities for compassion or destruction towards non-humans in Fallout as well, so I don't think it's what's on the outside that counts.
Maybe it's the setting. KoToR was in a whole different galaxy, an exceedingly long time ago, and games like Fable retain too much fantasy and medieval wizardry to trick the brain into believing it is any sort of reality. But Fallout 3 prides itself on realism - Washington D.C. is indeed a real place, and even worse, the locations of important buildings and monuments are identical in-game and in real life. Yes, there are mutants and ghouls traipsing around, and robots that you desperately want to hear say, "Danger, Will Robinson!" but the humans are human and the destruction evident in and out of Washington proper is definitely within the realm of possibility.
Or maybe it's just me. Kotor II came out in 2004 - the same year I graduated high school. Fable 2, which I own and play, prides itself on being fantastical and somewhat cartoonish - it has a distinctive look and feel, and for the game that it is, I personally believe it's the right look. But I'm no longer a teenager - and though I sometimes try not to recognize it in real life, I think as we grow older we more fully understand the complexities of life and living in modern society - and are hopefully more loathe to cause pain and suffering to those who don't deserve it. This works well in reality, because I've yet to murder anyone for their computer passwords or Mirelurk Cakes. When it comes to Fallout 3, though, I can't switch it off.
Maybe someone else out there can describe the Megaton mushroom cloud to me. Tell me, is it very pretty?
-- Matt
1 comments:
It is very pretty, Matt. Bask in Atom's warm glow!
I think what you describe comes not only from the game's realism, but also from the setting of the game. Things were difficult for the residents of KotOR, but it often didn't feel that way in the skyways of the Republic. There were slums and people who were being repeatedly screwed over, but you were never made to feel like the world was a desperate place. Fallout is different. You're always scrounging, even at level 20. You are made to feel very conscious of the world. I think that's the key difference.
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