The Problem with Fallout 3

Anyone that knows me well knows my love of Fallout 3. I've played through it several times, each time roleplaying a different character, from Marv to Hattori Hanzo. I truly believe it to be one of the most important games in the history of gaming itself, the latest setting of the bar, the current standard of video game excellence. Its sequel, New Vegas, was both enamoring and frustrating, for while the added array of weapons and the changing of stat build-up was an improvement, the game as a whole was not as satisfying an experience. Fallout 3 drives with a purpose; it hides its skeleton well, better perhaps than any other game in existence, one of the main reasons I hold it in such high regard. It's almost impossible to have your suspension of disbelief halted while playing Fallout 3, with the exception of outside interference, glitching, and power outages, it makes you want, and even feel obligated, to perform the necessary functions in its programming. Whereas so many other games simply stick to the original formula of video games (move x from a to b), Fallout 3 masks the formula by not only providing c to z at the start of the game, but also contains a caliber of writing so high it's easy to get lost in the game and forget the formula entirely. New Vegas does not hide the formula nearly as well, much of it feels rushed and forced, and the new additions are overshadowed by the transparency of the games motivators.

When I was younger one of my favorite games was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I loved the cute silliness of it, the acceptable level of challenge, and the (at the time) vast array of items and weapons to choose from. The soundtrack was bitchin as well (the Boss music remains one of my favorite video game tunes, though nothing will ever touch Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon). One of my favorite activities in the game, after beating everything shy of the final boss Smithy, was to re-equip old weapons and go back to previous maps and relive the joy of the Masher, the Sticky Glove, and the Chain Chomp. The cause of this habit, unclear to me at the time, was the core mechanic of too many RPGs: grinding. Grinding is pretty much essential to every RPG experience, because you can't learn if you don't do. The problem with grinding is that it is exhaustively repetitive, especially in MMORPGS like Everquest and WoW, but equally so in smaller games like Pokemon. I never could fathom how someone could possibly raise their pokemon to 100 without rare candies. The level of dedication and effort is almost idiotic, though perhaps this is what separates me from the hardcore gaming community. The reason I loved going back to those weapons was because I was so bored with the animations of the best weapons and needed a change. I had a similar habit in FF7, doing everything I could to save every single weapon, denying myself inventory space and money to be able to switch it up whenever I pleased. I don't think I ever actually did switch back in FF7, but I kept them all anyways. They were so cool to look at in battle.

I can't play most video games anymore, I find them boring. So many fail to effectively disguise the formula, be it moving x or making value a read 0 before value b (fighting games), that it's almost impossible for me not to get dragged out of the experience. Even Super Mario RPG is stale to me now, nostalgia being the only thing that makes me turn it on. That's part of Nintendo's struggle at the moment: they're stuck with one foot in the past and one trying to make strides into the future, which, unless they commit, will end with them being split at the veggies. The virtual console on the Wii is the most pointless thing in the world, because it only takes a minute of playing to realize how much better off we are now. Why play an utterly linear 32bit RPG like Super Mario RPG when Fallout 3 exists? It's like comparing the Lazy Shell to the Hammer.

This crisis isn't just occurring in the gaming industry, it's in every industry. Humanity is in flux, we're at a crossroads. As the Singularity draws ever nearer, technology is evolving at an exponentially rapid pace, one we are having an increasingly difficult time keeping step with. This dilemma is the core behind much of the current slump, the industries with their legs spread to the point of splitting. It's time to commit to the future and to leave the past to the past. No more sequels, no more money-makers, no more blockbusters, no more adaptations. It's time to move forward. I know it's scary. We don't know how, but if we keep ourselves on the path, we will inevitably carry ourselves down the hard road of evolution.