When the world ends

I am playing some Fallout 3 at the moment. The game has a rather traditional set of game mechanics with some more modern features for an RPG. I haven’t progressed too far in the game’s story – yet I am hooked. Guess I just like to shoot things right now.

Funny how post-apocalyptic settings in the entertainment industry has become so overly popular in the last couple of years. From the classic Mad Max trilogy, to previous years’ I am legend and Children of men, and now the critically acclaimed movie adpation of the novel The Road written by the brilliant author Cormac McArthy coming this fall, and after that The Book of Eli coming in the beginning of next year, just shows the popularity of this broad genre setting.

While I reminisce on the experience of seeing the previously movies set in this genre I figure it is a great setting in a video game as well. And while Fallout 3 is visceral in it’s presentation, and right and wrong is proven to have place in that world, it still has not gone to that extreme where the player really, really can feel that sense of loss, where he/she can feel the harshness of a world that once died.

While I try to play the game with a good karma option I wonder if a game like Fallout wouldn’t benefit from a more conflicted main character and where it becomes more apparent to the player about the futility of it all. A theme which eventually will show that one person cannot save innocence without sacrificing himself in the end.

Perhaps Fallout 3 will give me a glimpse of that theme when I have played some more. Because even if the main character can inspire hope, it should never be easily achieved, and there should always be consequences. I therefore really hope that a thematic counterpart, like “the loss of hope” will be seen somewhere in the story. Because it is that sensation of hopelessness that brings that “heart of darkness”, which keep this kind of genre it’s raw cruel energy. Creating that heavy “lump in the throat sensation” when a story really resonates with you and you realise that the world once did really end.