Critic in Exile: Is It OK to Finally Admit That I Didn't Really Like Fallout 3 All That Much?
Were Fallout 3's review scores inflated? Confessions of a Wasteland outcast.
1/6/2009 6:29 PM | 79 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Scott Jones
Status: Coffee makes me feel 4-percent sexier.
There are no support groups for us. No weekly meetings in church basements. No yoga studio retreats. Instead, not unlike the game's irradiated Ghouls, we are pariahs. We are members of a secret society forced to whisper to one another,
"Am I the only one who didn't like Fallout 3
?"
I say "we" because I thought I was alone.
Of course, I'm not.
"It's so lonely here. And cold. And something that I can't find keeps shooting at me."
Since
Fallout 3 shipped in October, I've kept my secret, fearing that should it get out, the rest of the gaming community, including the considerable Fallout fan base, would grab their pitchforks and light their torches and chase me into the old windmill. When it came time to cast my vote for
Game of the Year a few weeks back, I spent a series of antacid-infused days wrestling with whether or not I had the stuff to go against the grain, to stand up to pitchfork- and fire-wielders, and be true to my heart. Mostly I wondered if I'd forsake the little credibility I have in this business by picking something other than
Fallout 3.
So what did I do? Weak fool that I am, I voted for
Fallout 3 as GotY, wondering as I did so whether or not I'd be able to look myself in the mirror the next morning.
Make no mistake:
Fallout 3 is a remarkable game. Yet the question is, do I crown it with laurels and start up the "Chariots of Fire" theme simply because I admire it? Or, do I vote for what might be perceived as a less ambitious game; a game that, regardless of its limitations, sucked me in, and held my attention for weeks on end, at the risk of tarnishing my reputation? (Cough, cough,
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, cough. Or, cough, hack,
Mirror's Edge, cough.)
"I wish I could punch you."
I recently threw caution to the wind and whispered my anti-
Fallout 3 sentiment to a fellow game journalist who edits a competing Web site. I was worried for a moment that this journalist would report me to the
Fallout 3 Crusaders. I saw pitchforks and lit torches in my future. To my surprise, this journalist's eyes got wide. She whispered,
"You too? Man, I can't play that shit, either; it just depresses me too much."
That's how I learned that I wasn't alone.
I know of a least a half-dozen writers who included
Fallout 3 in their top-10 lists who, I know for a fact, didn't invest more than three or four hours in the game (if that), and still felt compelled to vote for
Fallout 3 -- let's go ahead and say it -- because it felt like the right thing to do. In the end, it seems it's not a question of how much critics liked or disliked the game, but rather an issue of not being able to argue with 1. the developers (Bethesda proved with the Elder Scrolls series that they know what they're doing), and 2. the game's pedigree (the first two Fallout games are already well-ensconced in the canon).
