I know it has been a while since there has been a post on here but i thought i would write a quick one just to talk about what i think should be called the Fallout Effect.If you don't know Fallout 3 is an first person shooter RPG from Bethesda Studios, the makers of Oblivion. It is fantastic, a really great game. It is in a post apocalyptic future setting after a massive nuclear war, and basically the entirety of the world is a wasteland.
I always go into these RPGs with the aim of being good and trying to help people, everyone wants to be a hero. And i managed to do so for a long time, but this game is so grim and the world is so screwed up and it just destroys your morality in the game. At the beginning of the game i would help anyone and would avoid killing anyone who seemed to have a sliver of innocence. But so much crap happens to you both in the story and outside it, and also just in the general world, that you quickly forget these ideals. It is a game that has a strange way of moving you.
One point in the game that you will likely encounter more then once is when you go into a house which is relatively still standing, and as you go through the rooms you may come across a child's room. And there is a skeleton on the bed, not a child's exactly but a small adult to avoid to much shock i guess. There are toy cars and teddy bears on the floor, and seeing this just filled me with rage. When next a raider walked through the door i took pleasure in killing someone who may have caused something like this at one point or another.
And later i would find myself remembering an event in the game that was horrific or unjustified connected with a character and my morals would just go out the window and i would forget about keeping my character good and perform any given act with no care of who gets hurt in the process. Now of course none of these characters are in fact real so there is no consequence of killing these character apart from in the game. But the people in the game are very life like and you do get attached to some of them and others you just want to bullet in their head.
The fact that Fallout 3 can have such a strong impact on you and really bring you into this world is what makes this a game everyone needs to experience. Things will happen in the game that will make you both angry and sad, however it still manages to be charming and enjoyable. So if you enjoy RPGs in any form, buy this game. This isn't a formal review cause i have yet to finish Fallout 3 but so far it is amazing.
