Sometimes I think that open-ended games are wasted on me, because I inevitably end up taking the goody two shoes route that a normal linear game would have me do anyway. Treachery, backstabbing, manipulation - while they're all terrific ambitions in flexible game design, they aren't courses of action that come naturally to a sentimental pussy like me. I guess that's the draw, though - I can play the guardian angel, while someone with less scruples could play a sociopathic mass murderer, or maybe just an amoral opportunistic type. Plus, there's always the extra feelgood factor when I play the Good Samaritan out of choice, and not because the game railroads me into it.

I wasn't always this wussy - while playing the first two Fallout games back in the previous millenium, I found myself committing all kinds of atrocities along the path of my noble quest. I suppose I can peg that down to being drunk on the newfound freedom that I was granted. It eventually turned into a game of chicken between me and the game, trying to see how far I could push it. Well, in short, I folded first and the game won. You could sell your traveling companions to slavers, pimp your spouse to the porno industry and kill kids, for crying out loud! These guys took their post-apocalyptic ugliness pretty seriously.

So, Fallout 3. Big shoes to fill, yadda yadda...ok, enough with the buildup. It's a good game - a great game, even. Do I want to hold it up to a standard that was set by its predecessors around a decade ago? Not really. I'm not getting those experiences again (unless I replay the suckers and hope the rose-tinted shades don't fall off), so I might as well try and judge this one on its own merits.



Ok, so for those of you who haven't gone through the previews (or the multitude of reviews for the matter - I take my sweet time getting around to writing these things, it seems), you start off by molding the look of your character and then the story begins, a first person view of your exit from your mom's womb and into the light. Would that give this game an AO rating? I'm just wondering. We're talking a close-up tour of female genitalia. Yeah, ok - so it's from the inside, how is that any better?

That brings up one thing that bothers me - it's all very well if you're simply controlling someone that goes through a rapid aging process in-game. But this game goes to great lengths to push the idea that you're playing you, even making your father's character look like a more aged version of the character you designed. Although, since I got my looks from my mom, the whole hook probably didn't work as effectively as they hoped. Anyway, to continue - you're playing a projection of yourself, and reliving the process of slithering out of a womb as an adult. Sure it's novel, but it's also a weird disconnect.

Regardless, what follows is one of the more memorable tutorials I've played. You skip years at a time during stages, first covering motor functions, then assigning skill points, handling social interactions, being guided to a suitable profession based on your skillset and temperament - and all these happen at around the same time they do in a normal person's life. Except the skill points - it'd be stupid letting a one-year-old decide on permanent traits for their future - they'd probably max out thumb-sucking and forget about the rest. 

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