...In which I rage against the ending of Fallout 3

FALLOUT 3 SPOILERS ABOUNDING! TREAD BEYOND AT YE’ OWN PERIL!

This post is, of course, a rather self-indulgent, passionate rant, but I really, REALLY need to say this out loud. Plus, I think it's kind of a funny piece.

I really, really, really hated the ending of Fallout 3.

It seemed to sum up the whole rest of the game for me– sloppy, slap-dash, ill-conceived. An anecdote perhaps to elaborate.

First time through I tried to “save the wasteland” through the powers of verbal persuasion (just because I could and indeed, I did) and after convincing evil Colonel Leaves-turn-brown-and-fall-to-the-ground that he should just up and leave I was promptly stuck in a locked room with no exit and an obvious script failing to run. GG Bethesda, you cagey fellows.

So I did a bit of a RRRAAAGGGEEE and a reload back to the admittedly conveniently placed autosave which had occurred upon entering The Final Room Of The Game… dun dun DUN! So instead of exercising my charm, wit and powers of persuasion I just blasted Captain Trenchcoat in the head several times until he was dead. Did I mention I was already level 20? Well I was, and it was boring, everything was already too easy. I honestly don’t know why they even let me go past 15, as that would have been the decent thing to do to stop me form becoming some sort of super-god-man creature that explodes heads with a single look… But I digress.

So now, after blowing this guy away and instead of standing there like a poor excuse for a shop-front mannequin, my Brotherhood (Sisterhood?) of Steel compatriot Miss Lady Lyon starts her “finish the game now in the most clichéd and overwrought manner possible” script. You’ll remember this one from before, as it was obviously the one that didn’t start correctly earlier. So anyway she runs up to me and fills my screen with her waxy complexion and tells me that it’s all over and we win – YIPPEE! Then Dr Li tells us over the intercom that, oh noes, the plant is about to explode maybe from being damaged by the fighting or maybe by the sabotage that might-or-might-not have been committed before we even got here insert breath. You can tell how important it is by how breahless I am. Truly, a dreadful situation, I’m sure you’ll agree.

But wait, like a bad 90’s infomercial, there’s more. Someone maybe very possibly you will have to go into the control room which is now filled with deadly radiation to activate the purifier or it will explode!

So. That’s the 411. Miss Lyon turns to me and says “One of us will have to go in there and activate the purifier but the radiation is sure to kill anyone who goes in there!” Now I’m a smart guy, I thinks to myself – hey, I’ve got an advanced radiation suit, and I’ve got enough Rad-X and Rad-Away to walk through the reactor room of Chernobyl, I could maybe probably perhaps actually do it alright. But then I thinks to myself, hey I have a better idea- do I know anyone who could stand abnormally-high-and-sure-to-be-lethal-for-a-normal-person-dose of radiation? Oh yeah, that big green Meta Human dude who is STANDING RIGHT FUCKING BEHIND ME. *ahem*.

So I, in my most noble voice, tell Miss Lyon, with a wink and a smile, “Why certainly, old gel’, I’ll venture into yon radiation filled room and give that switch the old flickeroo. It won’t know what hit it, wot wot!” I turn to my traveling companion with a twinkle in my eye and say. “Fawkes ol’ buddie ol’ pal – I want you to go into the room with massive levels of radiation which are completely and totally harmless to you but would kill me faster than a green-snake up a sugar cane and save absolutely everyone in the wastelan. You're practically born for the job!” To which Fawkes ol’ buddie ol’ pal replies “Fuck no! You have a destiny, rah rah rah. I ain’t goin in there witchu!”

Bah! Fine, I didn’t need your help anyway… idiot. So in I go, stiff upper lip and all that, (rather chipper actually what with my advanced rad-suit and my small mountain of anti-radiation meds) rather convinced of the certainty of my own safety and survival. I enter the airlock and it opens up into the control room. See now, that wasn’t so bad was it? Rad count within acceptable levels, nothing actively killing me...Now where’s that switch I have to flick? Is it over there? (I run off round the back) HOLY SWEET JESUS THERE’S ANOTHER MUTANT IN HERE MOMMA!!!

Astute observation and correct but only insofar as there is a mutant in here, rather than another. Fawkes, by virtue of me not telling him to “stay where he was” outside, has followed me INside thanks to the miracle of the spawning distance. Yah rly. GG Bethesda, you cunning, cunning linguists, GG. /sarcasm and all that.

Okay fine. Whatever, it’s a bug. I’ll pretend he’s not there. Input the code, purifier starts, everything is honky dorey. Wait, what’s this? I’m swaying slightly. Now I’m keeling over! What the FRAK?! I feel fine! Seriously! Those Rad-Away’s I took make me less irradiated than I’ve been for days! And now you’re SCRIPT killing me?! Awww man!

Bah! I’ve had enough of being forced into the binary dichotomy of being a self-sacrificing hero or a treacherous villain in games! I’m going back to Far Cry 2 where no one judges me for being a complete fucking asshole as long as I get the job done. Fuck yeah.

War stories from Mosate Soleo

Update: I've noticed so may people have hit this blog post by googling 'Sefapane Nitrous Bug' or 'Sefapane Truck Bug', so here's a hint to getting your truck inside the garage: approach from the North. That is all.

** AVAST! Far Cry 2 spoilers ahoy! **

Far Cry 2 is all about the little details. I overheard a conversation between two militia men.

“Do you want to scrape some cash together and go to that bar, Mike’s?”

“No, we can’t. That place is off limits now – only expats allowed in there.”

It’s these short, humanizing vignettes that add some of the bite to your actions. I think, that I've missed out on many of the even more gut-wrenching reactions though, because I've been super careful with my saves and loads and always opted for the most ‘successful’ path. Justin Keverne alludes to some of the extreme situations the game can present you with in with his recent post ‘Mercenary Behaviour’. I similarly had my first rescue buddy lying on the ground dying at one stage, but the game bugged up and wouldn't let me use one of my many, many syretes. Instead of treating it as an accidental part of the narrative, I caved and loaded. On reflection, I wish I had stuck with the former.

Later in the 2nd act I had the only doctor in the village, and hence provider of my precious malaria pills, disappear and refuse to return even after the fighting had well and truly stopped (which I am somewhat confident was also a bug). I just continued on with my condition, expecting him to return at some future date, however it ended up messing with a mission.

I had been getting warnings about my deteriorating health for about an hour. The commander of the ULL in the south, whatsisname, had asked me to take out a truck loaded up with nitrous oxide bottles, depriving their enemies the ADR, of the gas - precious for its use in surgery. “Less surgery means less survivors”, he told me. Sounds like the potential for a good time, and they paid in stones too. That scratched my Pavlovian itch for reward, so I was content to oblige.

My newest fellow merc buddy, Marty, had a better idea. Hijack the truck and take it to Sefapane in the North-West. There, he would meet me and we’d blow it up in the middle of town, putting a dent in the operations of both the ADR and the ULL. Two birds with one stone. I pulled the flatbed truck into the garage which promptly sealed shut behind me, just in time for me to see Marty appear. He instructed me to open a gas bottle in the back of the truck, while he exposed a wire in a circuit box on the wall. Before I had a chance, another Malaria attack made its presence felt and having had no pills for a long, long time I succumbed to its embrace. I woke up in the hospital, effectively sealing me out of the room Marty and my current mission were both locked in. Again, I reloaded.

The second time, I knew I had to be quicker. I had to be faster so I could get in and out before my attack came on and incapacitated me. I got in, got out, blew it up and was helping Marty fight off the stragglers when, predictably, my Malaria kicked in and I passed out. I really should have stuck with it this time and treated it as part of the story, I mean, talk about a compelling unintended narrativee consequence, but Marty was now missing because I hadn’t fought off the stragglers and my awful habit of meta-gaming refused to let me ‘waste’ the game asset that was Marty. Again I caved and tried it differently.

Now, with the mission safely in my rearview mirror, my rescue buddy won't stop commenting on how amazing it is that Marty & I escaped from that last adventure unscathed every time I see her. “I feel you’re a dependable asset”, she tells me. I feel ashamed, and move on.