Letting Go of Fallout
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 2002
Somehow, lost within all of this concern was a simple fact to which I should have paid more attention: Oblivion, though not without its flaws, is the single best game that I have played in nearly four years. It's better than BioShock, better than Mass Effect, better than the Half-Life 2 episodes and certainly better than fun-but-less-inspired titles like Gears of War. It is, in fact, the best game I've played since the original Half-Life 2, which was in turn the best game I'd played since Deus Ex (released in 2000, and still my favorite game of all time). You may not put Oblivion on quite so high a pedestal, and that's an individual choice I won't begrudge you, but almost any rational gamer will admit that it's a fine example of the craft.Yip, that's right. Never seen it, but trust him, it's going to rock. Because Oblivion rocked. Right? Right?
With all this in mind, the question then is this: Why wouldn't I want one of my favorite series to be placed in the capable hands of the people who've developed one of the three best games I've played in the last decade? The answer, of course, is nostalgia. At its best, nostalgia breeds warm feelings and general good vibes, but at its worst, it breeds fear and mistrust of the future and an inherent bias, particularly against things like sequels, follow-ups or re-imaginings. It's a hard thing to do, letting go of expectation and embracing change; it's often antithetical to human nature, and it can take a difficult and intentional exercise of will to do so. Nonetheless, I advocate it wholeheartedly, especially when it comes to gaming.
I believe Fallout 3 is going to rock. I'm telling you this not because a developer asked me to, or because a publisher paid me to. I can't name a single member of the development team, nor do I have any further information than what is publicly available. I've never seen the game in action, and I know next to nothing about the plot. I work in the gaming industry, yes, but in this instance I am simply a gamer, analyzing what I know and what information is available to make a conclusion. I've spent time thinking about it, looking back on the experience of playing the first two titles (let's avoid talking about Fallout Tactics or Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, shall we?) and analyzing what I know about the people working on this latest installment, and I've come to my conclusion.
