A.Valiant.Flea
First time out of the vault
The feeling I'm left with after having played through the main story of Fallout 3 and through the majority of the additional quests is that Fallout 3 is like a cover band. They've heard an original band (Fallout 1 and 2 (it's post-modern brother), really liked them and to express those swell feelings sing songs just like them. Which is great but what can I get from Fallout 3 I didn't already get in F1 and F2?
What people are feeling in response to perceived weaknesses of the title could be said about the majority of media these days. The creative process has receded away from one of an artists unique voice offering a unique artifact to one of "I am inspired by that unique artifact" and want to perpetuate this warm-fuzzy feeling I have had interfacing with it by cloning it.
It's just a lack of substance. Instead of an overwhelming desire to say something or show something unique all our influences are coming from something that has gone before. In this case Fallout 3. It falls down because it's Bethesda's interpretation of Black Isles work without anything unique added. It hits all the same notes as the originals but there's no real feeling in the playing.
But don't take this as mindless bitching. I've thought about this. Fallout 3 would have succeeded if they sat down and wrote something that sang and then used the format of the Fallout universe to tell the story. Rather then researching the originals from the inside out and just making something up with all the same basic components (as they were understood) of the fallout universe.
Think about how amazing a flick like "Night of the Living Dead" was. The components were weak on their own: Isolated "spooky house", a scared cross-section of society and marauding zombies. The story and the characters are what made it made it zing. The message of the piece - race and society. Can we conquer our prejudices and survive? The zombies were incidental. Coulda been the commies invading or the girl scouts of America. It was a story of the days social issues told through a lens of zombie apocalypse.
I guess in the most simplistic terms here is what most consumer objects feel like to me lately ~ Fallout 3 being the case in point.
Imagine you've eaten a nice piece of cherry pie and enjoyed it so much so that the pie-maker attains a god-like pose in your mind. Your want to bestow the cherry-goodness of St.Pie-maker on as many others as you can and have them not only share your swell feelings for the pie but perhaps place you on a pedestal next to that godlike pie maker.
Now because you don't really have anything to add to that pie beyond your bristling unnatural affection for a piece of pastry - you do this by throwing it up and serving it on a plate.
As a culture we are consuming a lot of puke lately and because of the distinct lack of fresh pies we're starting to enjoy it. I did enjoy Fallout 3 but only as it compares to all the other soulless objects for consumption which seem to represent my options for sampling new and fresh ideas from society at large with the currency I get after toiling away in a shitty mind numbing soul crushing job... *deeply inhales after last bitter outburst* So, look - in a post-post-modern kind of way maybe Fallout 3 has succeeded. It's a sign of the times.
What people are feeling in response to perceived weaknesses of the title could be said about the majority of media these days. The creative process has receded away from one of an artists unique voice offering a unique artifact to one of "I am inspired by that unique artifact" and want to perpetuate this warm-fuzzy feeling I have had interfacing with it by cloning it.
It's just a lack of substance. Instead of an overwhelming desire to say something or show something unique all our influences are coming from something that has gone before. In this case Fallout 3. It falls down because it's Bethesda's interpretation of Black Isles work without anything unique added. It hits all the same notes as the originals but there's no real feeling in the playing.
But don't take this as mindless bitching. I've thought about this. Fallout 3 would have succeeded if they sat down and wrote something that sang and then used the format of the Fallout universe to tell the story. Rather then researching the originals from the inside out and just making something up with all the same basic components (as they were understood) of the fallout universe.
Think about how amazing a flick like "Night of the Living Dead" was. The components were weak on their own: Isolated "spooky house", a scared cross-section of society and marauding zombies. The story and the characters are what made it made it zing. The message of the piece - race and society. Can we conquer our prejudices and survive? The zombies were incidental. Coulda been the commies invading or the girl scouts of America. It was a story of the days social issues told through a lens of zombie apocalypse.
I guess in the most simplistic terms here is what most consumer objects feel like to me lately ~ Fallout 3 being the case in point.
Imagine you've eaten a nice piece of cherry pie and enjoyed it so much so that the pie-maker attains a god-like pose in your mind. Your want to bestow the cherry-goodness of St.Pie-maker on as many others as you can and have them not only share your swell feelings for the pie but perhaps place you on a pedestal next to that godlike pie maker.
Now because you don't really have anything to add to that pie beyond your bristling unnatural affection for a piece of pastry - you do this by throwing it up and serving it on a plate.
As a culture we are consuming a lot of puke lately and because of the distinct lack of fresh pies we're starting to enjoy it. I did enjoy Fallout 3 but only as it compares to all the other soulless objects for consumption which seem to represent my options for sampling new and fresh ideas from society at large with the currency I get after toiling away in a shitty mind numbing soul crushing job... *deeply inhales after last bitter outburst* So, look - in a post-post-modern kind of way maybe Fallout 3 has succeeded. It's a sign of the times.
