» Fri Nov 27, 2015 2:45 pm So I'm sorry if this post gets a little long but I made this account just so I could share my experience with the game. I've been playing games for quite some time, would consider myself to be an connoisseur of the sort and have been playing Bethesda games for a considerable amount of time(since Morrowind). That being said, I find that the company has evolved tremendously whether it be graphics, gameplay or writing but I would like to delve into the discussion of writing because it seems to me that it stuck out like a sunlit diamond among a sea of black in this latest installment.
(meaty part in 3rd paragraph)
To start off, the beginning of the of the story came with a pace similar to other role playing games associated with this company but with a sudden impact of tragedy. Usually you are a blank slate individual whose past can be made as the player sees fit but that player can decide to not have a family or to have one, be a murderous vagabond, valiant knight, or whatever the roleplaying calls for. In the latest Bethesda fallout story you are once again found being part of a family and thrust into the fray that is the wasteland only this time taking the viewpoint of the father or mother, instead of the son/daughter, who has seemed to lose everything. This introductory sequence already triggers a familiar aspect of life that we hold so dear...family. In videogames its hard to trigger emotion in an individual because of uncanny valley qualities, poor writing, bad pacing, action over story, or whatever the reason. This wasn't the case with fallout 4 and ill put it among others like the last of us or heavy rain. I say this because of the fact that the overarching story brings up a very touchy subject of what is it to have humanity, the things people will do to hold true to their ideology, and what you as an individual/greater whole are willing to sacrifice. All these ideas come together to form an experience that mirrors the real world and what is great is that the experience makes you think about your choices as a leader OR a follower.
Throughout the series the underlying idea is that "War...War never changes", which is perfect for the scenario set upon by this game company in that all these ideas(humanity, ideology, sacrifice) all come together to try and explain exactly why "war...war never changes."
In games like these I particularly like to role-play as myself and make decisions in the game I think I would make in real life. As one could imagine, especially one who has completed the game, this turns out to be very strenuous. It is at this point where I get into the meaty facet of this post. In the game Im playing as a normal person who has aligned himself with the brotherhood of steel because lets face it...power armor. Really, though, in actuality when I first came upon the brotherhood of steel it was easy to be a part of another kind of family that at first seemed to be part of the "greater good" but as the story progressed I felt less and less sure of my decision to join them and that is what is great about this game. One wants to always do the right thing but there isn't always a black and white answers. In history people do horrible things and try to justify them to help them sleep at night or that they believed so hard in what they were doing was ethical. Furthering the narrative you meet the leader of the illustrious brotherhood of steel who also seems at first to have to same views as you do but turns out to be a person who believes so much in his own particular set of morals that hes willing to sacrifice anything for those ideals. These people tend to be dangerous and as I played more and more of the faction I found myself in the shoes of a soldier who find himself in the midst of a real world counterpart. That counterpart being a republic turned totalitarian with a goal driven by fear. I mean come on, the faction has a zeppelin with emphasis on technology and im running around with a german shepherd storming hiding places of "sympathizers." In all seriousness this is absolutely my opinion of this and doesn't make it true but for me it felt like this was the point. I found myself as a person who wanted to do the right thing but realized those ideals I held before were being whittled down only to be replaced by those of a man I barely knew but whom so many respected. Maybe I'm wrong but this is great being implemented because people find themselves in these situations throughout history and the story must be told so that it isn't repeated. At this point in the game I was curious how the rest of the tale would play out so I continued my journey until the end. The finale involved the institute which was another faction that was joinable during your adventure whos ideals actually ran concurrent with the brotherhood of steel but the bos was just further down in the evolutionary process. There are a lot of aspects with the institute that I will leave out for sake of your time but the one idea that remained constant was the idea that science goes to far. The scientists in the institute were playing God deciding who deserves life and who doesn't, making life in their image because they could, and all in the name of bettering humanity at the cost of their own. The reason for them personifying these characteristics is that they have made androids that act, look, and up to the player to decide, feel like human beings. So after seeing most of what the brotherhood of steel and the institute were about I moved on to the other two factions that a player can be a part of in the game. The minutemen are a group similar to the brotherhood of steel, the only difference is that the faction is still in infancy due to the fact that they disbanded and are leaderless. This is where the player comes in and plays the part of the leader instead of the lowly grunt, where YOU are the respected and YOU are the one incorporating your own ideals into the people you lead. This happens to be another great part of this fantasy in that you can decide whether to side with the brotherhood, the institute or the railroad but if the player does the ideas and morals of those factions replace your own. The last and final faction happens to be the one with the most sense in my opinion in that they want to preserve life(even if it isn't life, its pretty close) rather than see it all burn and they are called the Railroad. The Railroad is important in this fiction in that it brings up the important decision of what exactly is humanity? Can what we call the soul be created? The railroad seems to think so and they could be totally right or they could be horribly wrong. What is important about The Railroad is that they are a faction who are willing to fight for the ideal that seems innocent enough but at the same time really don't know whats right and what is wrong but know that in their gut that any being portraying human characteristics deserves to be treated as equally.
In closing I'd like to say this game was an amazing experience with an amazing storyline. I'm curious if anyone on this forum felt the same as me as I traversed the landscape of the commonwealth questioning my every choice. I know that this story has been told before but I've never been so entranced in it because of the fact that it was a character made to be me. So what do you think? Are these ideologies why "War...war never changes?"
(p.s. the mission where you had to figure out the location of the railroad and spin the dial, this...TEN-BILLION TIMES MORE THIS!)
(p.s. p.s. don't destroy me on punctuation)
