» Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:31 pm
I'm cautiously optimistic! What a terribly British thing to say, eh??
My interest comes from knowing past Fallout games; 1, 2, and even Tactics. There are so many games out there set in a post apocalypse that are grim, depressing, and nothing more. No character. No soul. No personality. It's depressing, what's even the point of playing them? If I want to be melancholy, I can think of better ways to do it. The difference with Fallout though was that it was an apocalypse full of silly and black humour. It was quite light-hearted, ad it wasn't afraid to be terribly eccentric. Moreover, it wasn't afraid to be strange either, I still love that the doombeasts of Fallout 1 becoming the friendlies of Fallout 2 broke so many inflexible minds. All of this is why I love Fallout.
If I wanted to play a dreary old bloody post-apocalypse, there are lots of games I could play for that. I want to play Fallout for its character, for its charm, for its unashamed verve, that crazed glint in the collective eye of those making it, who'd throw caution to the wind just to do things that are unexpected, and just plain weird. I like that. These days, I miss that. Call me an old fart, but why's everything so serious these days? Even stuff that tries to be funny takes itself too seriously in doing so, all too often, having far too big of an opinion of itself. The reason I like Fallout is for being the opposite of that. It's not even afraid to laugh at itself a little. I remember all the puns, the set pieces like the Bridge of Death, the Hubologists, the crazed people, animals (feral brahmin!), and robots. It was entertaining.
Fallout made me laugh, it made me smile, too.
There are little hints of things in what they've shown us that give me hope that this sense of character, this individuality that gives their wasteland so much life, is present. The Church of Harold, for example. After getting a good chuckle out of me, I just grinned like a fool at that. I mean, the logo for it... have you seen it? It's perfect. It's typical Fallout. It's everything that was missing from Fallout 3 and even New Vegas in my opinion. Honestly Internet, people, Humanity... why are we so bleeding serious?
I want more of that. If they can continue to be eccentric and crazy, if they can make me laugh and smile like that did, and like the previous Fallout games did, then it's a win for me. If a game has character then I can plow through even the worst gameplay to enjoy it. This game may be awesome because the soul of Fallout may be there. So I'm cautiously optimistic, and I'll become more so the more they show me things that are off the wall, the more they show me the black humour that made past Fallouts so lovable.
But that single image with the Church of Harold gives me hope that that they've got the right people at the helm. For a game like this, you need to be able to take a wasteland and turn it into a thing of wonder.
They just might be able to do it. Maybe.
Cautiously optimistic.
