Fallout 3

Jan 4, 2008

The developers behind Fallout 3 visibly wince when you describe their new game as “Oblivion with guns.” Such a summing-up might sound awesome- freeform exploration of a ruined and wasted land, hundreds of years after a nuclear apocalypse- but there’s so much more to Fallout. Paranoia, social experiments, naivety. And so much comedy.

Consider the legendary ‘Vaults’. They’re shelters, built under rock and granite that protected citizens from the nuclear firestorm. There are scores of them in Fallout’s world, each engineered by a sadistic and warped mind to test its inhabitants. Each has a particular quirk or problem its wretched occupants have to overcome.

Some are built to house 1,000 women, and only one man. Others, 1,000 men and only one woman. Some are filled with guns, others devoid of weapons. Some are designed to gradually fall apart, demanding that their occupants constantly battle against degrading systems and rusting valves. Some released psychotropic drugs into the atmosphere ten days after the doors were shut. Just to see what happened.