A slightly unhinged letter to Bethesda, regarding Fallout 4

Here are some random thoughts, theories, desires and wishes relating to Fallout 4, in no particular order.

  • OK, we get a dog right? The video shows a dog. If I don’t actually get a dog in game I will be sad.
  • Do we actually get to visit that house in the announcement video? It looks like it had some loot in it. I like loot.
  • OK, so, like, that flying ship. Do we get to fly it? Or is it cut scene set dressing or something? I want to fly it, or at least loot it.
  • Related to the dog, can the dog die? I won’t take it with me if the dog can die. In F03 I never took anyone but Fawkes because they were so fragile. I liked NV a lot more because if you are a wuss like me and play it on lower difficulties the followers don’t die they just pass out.
  • How robust is the looting? How much random wasteland crap can I fit into my backpack? Can I make the dog carry it all?
  • I really really want there to be a ton of easter eggs and references. Can you do that, Bethesda? Can you?
  • will you please stop putting shitty loot in high level locked rooms and safes. In like, all your games, forever.
  • If you haven’t already got the hint my main priorities are taking everything that’s not nailed down and having a dog friend.
  • It’s in Boston, yeah? I don’t know anything about Boston. Does Boston get snow? I think it does. WILL WE HAVE SNOW IS WHAT I AM ASKING I KINDA WANT RADIOACTIVE SNOW except I don’t because it sounds terrible for looting
  • please don’t fuck this up i love these games
  • FALLOUT 4 FALLOUT 4 FALLOUT 4 OMG
  • I am glad no-one was there to see me watching the video because I squealed and actually threw my arms up and cheered when we got to dun duuuh DUUUUH
  • LOOK, ok, I know it’s never gonna happen but I kind of want a fallout set in England and I have some good ideas to float if you want to hit me up
  • WHAT IS THE PLOT
  • can you please release a stripped-down version of the character generator on your website so that I can play with it a bit I don’t think you understand how important it is that I spend 2 hours creating the perfect character face for someone I will only see in VATS and killcams
  • RELEASE DATE PLEASE

  • dog

    DOOOOGGGG

Signed: a fan

The Land of The Video Game Apocalypse

Video games and the apocalypse go hand in hand. Player One is always that one guy with shit to do and an appointment on Tuesday trying to make his (or her) way through this mess and help all these people out—how’d they survive before Player One came along?

But, we keep coming back to these needy people in their dangerous world because of some romanticism that we can hack it, fix it, or beat it into submission.

Of all the video game apocalypses, which is the worst; which is the best? Is it the overwhelming zombies of Resident Evil, the galactic invasions of Mass Effect, the aggressive extermination in Halo, or some other hellish scenario?

If given the choice, I’d find this Unicorn Apocalypse from the Samsung Mobile commercials and be there. I don’t know all the details of Unicorn Apocalypse I just know those are two things I need to see in one place in order to die happy.

Some of my favorite and most feared video game apocalypses

Continue reading “The Land of The Video Game Apocalypse”

There won't be any video games.

So, my life is so utterly dull right now it’s untrue. I wake up, I study some, I look for a job, I write some fiction, I go to bed. Sometimes I go on a run (I am really excited for the release of Zombies Run! for android, because I’m pathetic) or do some weights. The rest of the time I play computer games. Mostly Skyrim. I’m so obsessed with this game I have the OST on my writing soundtrack. I nearly had an orgasm over the Dawnguard trailer.

 

So, it’s perhaps a little understandable that my Apocalypse Obsession is being quiet right now (though it’s still there. When studying Pugin and his role in the Gothic revival I was like ‘bloke designed defendable buildings, I’ll  give him that.’ I visited a Cathedral built in the Gothic Revival style, and while other people were praying to their god, I said to my husband ‘Barricade the doors and you have a pretty decent emergency shelter if you board up those big windows.’)

So, I wanna talk about some more things I’ll miss post apocalypse, I have to say that right now the thing  I’ll miss most is….

 

Video games.

GOD I LOVE THEM. SO MUCH.

I mean, I love reading more, but when I’m too tired or distracted or sad or whatever to read, a video game provides the required immersion and reality avoidance with minimal mental effort on my part. I get to feel real human emotions in a muted form about things that don’t matter, and most importantly I get to rack up a terrifying kill count without being arrested because the 1137 people I killed were just pixels.

It sounds like I’m dissing the medium, but I’m not. When I say I love them, I mean I actually love them. I am occasionally critical of bad games or the culture of racism and sexism within the industry, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them. They’re capable of telling real, emotionally affecting stories in a deeply immersivve medium, which is fucking great. Love em. Passionately and positively. I don’t bitch about it when a game isn’t what I want- I am just sad and quietly resolve to not buy the next one as soon as it comes out (Fable 3 I AM LOOKING AT YOU.) This is my hobby, I enjoy it, I generally feel positive about it. I have my favourite franchises like everyone, but I’ll give new stuff a try (By the Way, Enslaved is a shockingly underrated and undersold little game set post apocalypse. It’s pretty cheap these days so if you spot a copy, grab it), but I don’t get overly invested in games in the way I do books. A game has shocked me, often (Bioshock), made me sad in a sort of nice way (Fallout 3 and New Vegas, when coming across the remnants of life before the war) but I’ve never been the sort to cry over a computer game. Throw my controller, sure, but cry, or jump around in happiness? I save that for books. What games do for me is to take myself away from whatever else is happening in my world and make it better for a little bit. I can be an incredible person with magic powers instead of an unemployed 26 year old in rented accomodation.

Post apocalypse, they’ll be gone. Even if elecrtricity is still about, we won’t have enough of it to dedicate to my desperately important Skyrim schedule. And I will REALLY, REALLY CARE ABOUT THIS. Because while I love to read, there are going to be plenty of bookstores to loot, so I won’t run out of new books too soon (though I will kill myself if all that’s left is Dan Brown). And I love to tell stories, but I can do that with my mouth. Video games kinda require modern technology, and there won’t really be anything comparable around, any more. There’ll be nothing that can take me out of my shitty world in the way gaming can, nothing to make me feel amazing, nothing to take out a bad day on, just my unending, heart-crushing life.

 

God, I’ll be stuck with with table top roleplaying. And three of the people on my team are Rules Lawyers. KILL ME NOW.

What's Better than Fallout: New Vegas?

Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition with VIDEO! [1. anninyn knows what’s up.]

What’s Fallout, and where on Earth is New Vegas?

For starters, it’s a video game set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and where bottle caps are currency and you… Well check out the official story:

Welcome to Vegas. New Vegas.

It’s the kind of town where you dig your own grave prior to being shot in the head and left for dead…and that’s before things really get ugly. It’s a town of dreamers and desperados being torn apart by warring factions vying for complete control of this desert oasis. It’s a place where the right kind of person with the right kind of weaponry can really make a name for themselves, and make more than an enemy or two along the way.

As you battle your way across the heat-blasted Mojave Wasteland, the colossal Hoover Dam, and the neon drenched Vegas Strip, you’ll be introduced to a colorful cast of characters, power-hungry factions, special weapons, mutated creatures and much more. Choose sides in the upcoming war or declare “winner takes all” and crown yourself the King of New Vegas in this follow-up to the 2008 videogame of the year, Fallout 3.

Enjoy your stay.

(source)

Fuck YES! Amiright or amiright? Don’t you want to be there? Play there? Maybe I’m just extra psyced because I have a Pip Boy bobble-head and lunchbox incorporated into my kitchen decor. Again, anninyn knows whats up.

What’s in this so called Ultimate Edition that makes it any better than the Blah Edition?

Ultimate Edition presents the definitive edition of Fallout: New Vegas – featuring the main game and all six pieces of game add-on content: Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, Courier’s Stash, and Gun Runners’ Arsenal.

(source)

That’s like, at least, six extra missions.

Where is this video you speak of?!

Look out below:

Also, there are pictures: