Section8 Explores Fallout 3
Section8 Explores Fallout 3
Review - posted by baby arm on Sat 20 December 2008, 23:15:48
Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Fallout 3; Gareth DaviesThe endless stream of Fallout 3 reviews continues with our own Section8.
Worse however, is that by pre-assigning a black and white morality to various actions, Bethesda completely removes the player's ability to thematically explore morality within their gameworld. Theft is always evil. Killing depends on who you've killed, not the situation in which it occurred. Obviously it's a lot to ask that a game be situationally aware, but there's a lot of missed opportunities here. Why have one universal moral code? Why not have characters morally judge you according to a variety of stats, instead of just leaving them as fluff for the loading screens? It's far more interesting to have a character judge you for having killed hundreds of people, no matter how well intentioned each kill was. Or characters who will judge a cannibal as such no matter how many bottles of water they've given to the tiny handful of beggars throughout the wasteland. Bethesda do themselves no favours trying to directly emulate Bioware's simple systems of morality, especially when a Fallout game treats things with the same good guy/bad guy mentality of Star Wars.Please read on...
Worse however, is that by pre-assigning a black and white morality to various actions, Bethesda completely removes the player's ability to thematically explore morality within their gameworld. Theft is always evil. Killing depends on who you've killed, not the situation in which it occurred. Obviously it's a lot to ask that a game be situationally aware, but there's a lot of missed opportunities here. Why have one universal moral code? Why not have characters morally judge you according to a variety of stats, instead of just leaving them as fluff for the loading screens? It's far more interesting to have a character judge you for having killed hundreds of people, no matter how well intentioned each kill was. Or characters who will judge a cannibal as such no matter how many bottles of water they've given to the tiny handful of beggars throughout the wasteland. Bethesda do themselves no favours trying to directly emulate Bioware's simple systems of morality, especially when a Fallout game treats things with the same good guy/bad guy mentality of Star Wars.