Fun fact: KOTOR tried to claim that its events were taking place 4000 years before the Star Wars movies! How much sense does that make? In that amount of time we went from stone tablets to smart phones. In Star Wars World they went from lightsabres and spaceships to... guess what.
I agree though. The world should be totally picked over by now. You've been out of the vault for like a month and you have personally cleaned out every ammo box in the state of Mass. The buildings, the ones that survived the blast, would probably be reduced to rubble by the constant fighting in the streets.
Rule of Cool
I think if were were bombed today. This very moment....that there would still be some scattered cans of spam and packages of twinkies left about to have.
Just take a look at pictures of HIROSHIMA, JAPAN after one very low yield bomb, just do a google search on images. Now think what would be left to any major city after 3 or 4 high yield bombs struck. Would not be a very fun place to have a game world based on. I think they would have been much better off making it a biological strike and what we see now is what is left after years of neglect. But hey once again this is not real it is a game, it does NOT claim to be a simulation, just enjoy it for what it is.
I get what you're saying, but realism makes for poor gameplay. A realistc wasteland would be boring as a game.
Radiation can preserve food, and stop decay by killing bacteria, pests and hungry wastelanders. It's not like there isn't a bigger, more nutritious meal, like Brahmin, Mirelurks, or a juicy wastelander...
There have been great advances in psychiatric drugs in recent years.
No, the 200 year gap was by Bethesda, not sure where you got your info about it being in the original Fallout.
Fallout 1 begins in 2161, 84 years after the war in 2077
Fallout 3 begins in 2277, yes 2277, meaning it's exactly 200 years after the war.
You should have suspended your disbelief back when you first saw terminal working without electricity.
Would you want to pop one open and chow down on the contents, 200 years later?
This is why I always supported the Empire and Sith after playing KOTOR - clearly, the Jedi and the Republic stand for thousands of years of stagnation and intellectual oppression!
hmmm 200 years, well most animal and microbes that cause decay in the first place would be gone. The amount of radiation would be around for at last 100+ years. During that time going outside of a protected area without protection would shorten your lifespan to a great deal. You would either die or be ghoulified. The level of radiation would limit how far people would go out and where people would go. drinking or even walking/swimming or even being near water would be dangerous.
You also have to think about in fallout 4 nuclear power plants would be abundant, not to mention all the car, trucks ...ect. we know that the people in our vault left around 180 days after the bombs dropped. which most likely would of been a death sentence.
read and listen to the history people talk about in game and you will get an idea of what it was like during those 200 years.
In a post apocalypse world. Yeah, I'd give the spam a go. I mean, I don't think there would be many choices in lean hunting times. Since I've already eaten MREs from about 1942 and it wasn't too bad...I'd give it a try.
so how do you explain the pyramids, the coliseum, easter island, or other ancient buildings that have lasted for thousands of years. its not really that much of a stretch.
Non Sense steel is very light weight ahahaha.
The thing is, how could he have managed to keep doing that over 200 years? I'm still trying to decipher the source of Codworth's infinite supply, perpetual motion machine fuel. I actually did stumble across the only can of fuel named after him while saluaging recently. Can't remember where my PC picked it up. Decided to hang on to it in case Beth has something in store for making infinite supply jet pack or fusion core raw materials.