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jp's Fallout 3 (360)
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| [October 14, 2009 09:24:14 PM]
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Interesting thing about Fallout 3 is that for all its moral greyness...which isn't really, the game does a pretty good job giving you feedback as to the moral interpretation that your actions will have. For example, when looking around someone's home, the items you can pick up appear in red indicating that taking them would be stealing (bad). You can still take them, but the moral evaluation will be negative. Perhaps more curious is the fact that stealing has a negative effect regardless of whether there are any witnesses or not. So it's the act itself that counts.
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| [July 10, 2009 11:25:18 PM]
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Booted up, created my character and left the vault. That would be the super short description, but would entirely miss the point for why I wanted to play this game and what I've been trying to pay attention to.
I've developed an academic interest in ethics and videogames which I've been pursuing by writing (paper presentation coming up soon) as well as playing (research for the paper and more). This game should clearly fit the bill in more ways than one, right?
I literally started the game when I was born. It all begins with you looking at the outline of your father and hearing only your mother's voice. She died soon after you're born. The process of character creation is woven into the narrative of the game, which is an interesting approach. You essentially play a few vignettes from your early life inside the vault before becoming an adult (which is when your father flees, and you must as well). I was curious to see how personal the process would be and how much I would be able to shape it, as a player, to reflect who I am and what I look like. You have free reign from the looks perspective and I had hopes for the stats/abilities side of things.
As I played I was reminded of the character creation process in Ultima IV wherein by answering a series of moral dilemmas, your starting character class was determined. The idea was to make you feel more invested personally in the character (it's you, not a puppet) because the character would somehow represent the values that you, personally, held dear.
So, in Fallout 3, when it came time to take the GOAT exam, which consists of a series of multiple-choice questions. I was quite excited. Unfortunately, most of the questions, although posed as "dilemmas" aren't really. The possible answers provided seemed more interesting from a comedic value over anything else. I tried to answer truthfully, but, as I came to realize later, it doesn't really matter. Supposedly the GOAT exam determined your starting skill-levels. In practice, as the exam proctor indicated, you can change things around regardless of what you got in the exam. In fact, you're given one last chance to change EVERYTHING right before you leave the vault. I can see why they did it, and it makes sense, but it does take away from the importance of what you answer. From this perspective, Fallout 3 didn't improve upon Ultima IV, though it did have a chance to do so. This isn't a criticism, in case you're wondering.
Ah, there is also a "Karma" system. I did some good things and got it boosted a few times. I'm not sure what it means entirely and how it affects the game, but I'll be paying some more attention to this particular part of the game. For now, I left the Vault completely encumbered (the remaining citizens will miss their coffee mugs, cups, and anything else that wasn't nailed to the floor).
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jp's Fallout 3 (360)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Technical problems
GameLog started on: Friday 10 July, 2009
GameLog closed on: Sunday 29 December, 2013 |
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