Games for Lunch: Fallout 3
In a nutshell: Growing up in a post-nuclear family.
10/28/2008 5:26 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 4
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Release Date: Oct. 28, 2008
Systems: PS3 (reviewed), Xbox 360, PC
ESRB Rating: M
Official Web site
0:00 While I've never touched any of the previous Fallout games, I've been excited about this one ever since I saw a demo at the Bethesda offices about a year ago.
0:01 "Please Stand By," reads a still frame on a slide projector, followed by slides featuring the Bethesda logos. Then a slide with a hulking beast in a gas mask. As I view the main menu, the background shows slides of a "Grognak the Barbarian" comic, "Nikola Tesla and You!" and an ad saying that "D.C.'s fastest highway is underground!"
0:03 Close-up on a vacuum tube that starts to crackle with energy. Slow zoom out to show it as part of a busted radio playing an old-timey song. Close-up on a dashboard hula girl, then zoom out farther to show it as part of a rusty bus with bombed-out windows. Zoom out farther to show the bus has no back and the wreckage that once was Washington D.C., complete with the Washington Monument in background. That heavily armored gas mask guy turns towards the camera. Fade to black. "Bethesda Software Presents: FALLOUT 3." (Yes, so far it's just been the
teaser trailer).
0:06 "War ... War never changes. Since the dawn of human time, when man found the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled ... By 2077, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer." A mushroom cloud rises in the background. The apocalypse was "simply the prologue in another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world. But War ... War never changes." Deep.
0:07 Much of humanity retreated to the safety of underground vaults during the nuclear war, only to return to "the hell of the wastes" when they emerged. In Vault 101, though, "the giant steel door closed and never reopened. It's here you were born. It's here you will die. Because in Vault 101, no one ever enters and no one ever leaves." Depressing!
0:08 Fade to black. I hear a loud heartbeat and baby crying. Oh, I'm the baby! The picture slowly gets less fuzzy as I focus on the doctor. "Let's see, are you a boy, or a girl?" he asks. Let me check. Hmm, seems I'm a boy.
0:09 "We've got a son, Catherine, a beautiful, healthy baby boy," says an unseen father. "You've got a bright future ahead of you son, I'm sure of it." They need to name me, which means
I really need to name me. If I'm the one playing this role, shouldn't the name be chosen for me by someone else? I name myself Vault Boy, because that's not confusing at all.
0:10 A "gene projection" machine shows what I'll look like when I'm grown up. Again, I can change this at my leisure. Because I'm splicing my own genes or something? Whatever...
0:12 I can still change my gender at this point. I think becoming a female at this point would really freak out dear old dad, don't you?
