Why the hell did I buy this game? I confess I’m surprised to find myself enjoying it, and if you’re prepared for a bit of a ramble… I’ll explain. I first encountered Bethesda when I played Morrowind, the 3rd release in the Elder Scrolls franchise. I played the game fairly extensively, entranced at the time by the pretty pixel shaded water, but I don’t remember ever ‘finishing’ it. I never did feel the game really resonated with me. I went on to play Oblivion for an even shorter period of time. For whatever reason the two games just failed to really grab and maintain my attention. Too much freedom in a game world not realized sufficiently to merit said freedom? Perhaps that was it… maybe my ability to truly invest myself in an RPG has atrophied over time, replaced by the instant gratification of racing simulators and other pursuits less demanding of my time.
So why am I finding myself drawn to playing Fallout 3? I was (stupidly) a little surprised to load the game up for the first time and discover it is essentially Oblivion with a fresh coat of paint and some tweaked game systems. Doh! I guess I was expecting a bit more of a ground up development for the resurrection of a beloved franchise. I cringed at this realization yet soldiered on with the creation of my character. A process which has been plucked directly from Bethesda’s previous titles.
While I was creating my character two things dawned on me.
- I’m horribly jaded.
- Gamers desperately need a new genre of video game.
I’ll save a discussion regarding the festering rotting state of genres in the game industry for another time and focus on my woeful state as a disallusioned gamer. So yes I’ve played the same RPG game with a different name more times than I care to count. Same goes for FPS, RTS, TBS, etc, etc.
This guaranteed sense of familiarity with any new game I play is a wasting illness I’ve been suffering for too long. It’s never really occurred to me before, but novelty has been such a driving force in my ability to immerse myself in a game. Robbed of any real novelty in game mechanics, I’m forced to rely on the presentation and the story to transport me to immersion land (video game stories don’t wow me very often). Fallout 3 is the first RPG title I’ve come across in a long time that can overcome the “been there, done that” feeling of its engine and interface to immerse me in an environment I find myself wanting to return to again and again. I guess if I want to continue enjoying the genres I used to be so drawn to I’ll have to make some changes. I’ll have to learn to embrace the sameness I’ve almost come to despise and learn to extract more enjoyment from what makes each video game unique, the story it’s trying to tell.
