Fallout 3

Okay. So I’ve christened my PS3 by starting Fallout 3 and immediately I’ve been overwhelmed by giddy, silly, drooling infatuation. Turn off the phone, lock the doors, set my socials to “auto-away.” I am in love.

I want to say first off that my Xbox is my first love “ like my 8th grade boyfriend, I will always gaze upon it fondly, and all that it taught me: curbstomping, roadie running, how to flashbang a bunch of terrorists into blinking, weeping toddlers, how to eviscerate Covenant and Locust with chainsaws and plasma swords alike. And I will always return to my X to get me a little bit more o’ that sweet, sweet action.

But I am loving my 3 and loving F3, especially the V.A.T.S.-aided kill movies. Spinning down into slomo to watch your own character unleash some post-apocalyptic whoop-ass on an irradiated mutant is, to say the least, a girlie-wood inducing feature. (Yes, I said girlie-wood. If you’re confused, get out a pencil and paper and muse on it for a while).  The V.A.T.S films make me wish I could slow down my own life on occasion like that, say, when someone walks through a door I’m nicely holding open without thanking me (likelihood of a Torso Hit = 76%); cuts me off on the freeway (likelihood of a double finger out the window = 64%); or jumps in front of me in line at the Whole Foods (likelihood I’m going to rip you a new a**hole; well, verbally, anyway = 98%). 

I also like all of the human interaction, and the concept that your actions in this virtual world, like the real one, have authentic consequences. Sure, it’s just a game, so you could be the ball-cracking jackass you’ve always dreamed of being in real life. But why not help some nice young lady reach her family, or save some Wastelanders from flesh-eating WWF mutants? It’s nice to be nice, and plus, you get to kill mutants. Aah, the best of both worlds.

However, I want to make a quick and loving case for my good old-fashioned FPS and TPS headbangers. While I like opening one desk drawer and mailbox after another searching for bottle caps and deviled eggs that seem to have survived nuclear holocaust (I knew there was something creepy about those things) there’s something so satisfying about pushing a burning car down towards a crouching pod of giant bugs and then meléeing them all into smithereens. It may not be elegant, but hot-damn, is it enjoyable.

So, I’m off to deliver a letter to some sad-sack Wastelanders who live over by a broken bridge. I’m gonna try not to get eaten by giant bi-pedal radioactive crabs on the way. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get to kill a couple of mutants.

It beats waiting in line at the Whole Foods.

P.S. Check out these cool shots of me playing with some vintage and not-so-vintage gaming implements of doom, shot by my brilliant artist friend Tasso, and let us all mourn the death of the joystick.