AT PLAY: COMPELLING, DYSTOPIC "FALLOUT 3"

AT PLAY: COMPELLING, DYSTOPIC "FALLOUT 3"

Set in a post-nuclear-war landscape, "Fallout 3" is an almost unbearably grim video game. Brett McCallon explains why he can't stop playing it ...

I'm clambering through the ruins of what was once an elementary school, now a hideout for a post-apocalyptic gang of criminals. Out of the corner of my eye I notice a mohawked psychotic in leather bustier levelling a shotgun at me. The world slows, I take careful aim and blow her head off. Her comrades then descend on me in force. I duck out of range of a grenade, take my gun and mow down the rest of the gang. I take a moment to savour my victory.

I now have unquestioned dominion over what is in fact a hollow shell of a building, lifeless amid the remains of a civilisation that committed suicide.

These weird juxtapositions of triumph and desolation have defined my experience of "Fallout 3", a startlingly detailed role-playing game (RPG) set in a post-nuclear-war landscape. Released last autumn by Bethesda Softworks, this is the company's second hit RPG in four years, following on the wildly successful "Oblivion". The games have similarities: both let players create their own story within a huge game world. Both feature a central plot, yet players can pursue dozens of missions, visit numerous locations and meet a huge cast of characters, many of whom have no role in the main story at all. 

But their respective worlds couldn't be more different. "Oblivion" is a traditional, swords-and-sorcery fantasy epic. It places characters in the mythical kingdom of Tamriel, where environments range from lush forests to snow-capped mountains. Fundamentally, the world seems worth saving. "Fallout 3", on the other hand, is set in the suburbs of Washington, DC, some 270 years after a nuclear war. Save this blasted, hostile world? For what?

A destroyed landscape has been the setting for games before, including the recent "Gears of War 2" and the first two games in the "Fallout" series. But "Gears" transpires on another planet, a thinly imagined backdrop for heart-pumping firefights, and the earlier "Fallout" games were rendered with technology that is now at least a decade old. What "Fallout 3" introduces is a terrible realism and familiarity. Players can explore the remains of the Washington monument from a fairly realistic perspective. The view from the top is plainly depressing.

And that's hardly the only dark scene. Murder, cannibalism, slavery, child abuse--the developers at Bethesda deserve credit for creating appropriately nightmarish content. It's easy to see why most game designers tread a little softer around dystopic scenarios. Yet I still play. What makes "Fallout 3" so compelling is the way its bleak setting, hopeless atmosphere and interactivity create personally meaningful moments.

The game is known for giving players unprecedentedly consequential choices. Most famously, players can either save or destroy the first town they encounter, potentially wiping out dozens of characters and hours of gameplay, while opening up a criminal world that is otherwise inaccessible. But in my own journey through this wasteland, I found that the most emotionally wrenching experiences were more subtle. 

To take one example of many: a young boy asks me to destroy the monsters who had killed everyone else in his town. I ultimately do away with the monsters (giant, mutated, fire-spitting ants--apparently a fairly common pest in the post-Armageddon future), but not before they murder the boy's father. Even with the last ant dead, the kid was stranded in a ghost town. When I left, the boy had hidden himself inside a personal protection station the size of a phone booth. I promised to look up his aunt in Rivet City, whenever I made my way down there.

For a while afterward I wandered around looking for trouble and new quests, but something was bothering me. I know it's stupid; I know the kid is just lines of code and some well-executed voice acting. But I couldn't just leave him in that booth, all alone. My natural instincts to protect my real-world daughter forced me to turn around and travel as quickly as possible to locate the kid's aunt and return to tell him the good news. His pre-scripted, animated smile didn't offer the payoff I might have hoped for. But the fact that Bethesda has created a world so dismal, so mindful of our worst fears about the future, that I found myself rushing to help a pretend child in a fictional wasteland just to prove that I am a civilised human being--now that's a significant achievement.

(Brett McCallon is a writer based in New Orleans. His last gaming column was about how gaming can and should infiltrate our everyday lives.)