Well today my school was closed due to the only snow we have had so far this winter(Which just happened to fall on the one day it was my turn to take all the trash out to the road, take out the cat litter and do two loads of dishes before midafternoon). I used to live in Mass, the closing hardly seems worth the trouble considering we have less than a foot of snow.
I got done the other day playing some Fallout 3 and I think my dad(Who is a avid gamer) was right about this game being too dark for him. The gameplay is nice, and I really enjoy some of the core mechanics(Except for the blindfold-both-hands-behind-the-back-dictating-through-a-translator easy lockpicking minigame. Seriously? The locks in oblivion were too easy, why should the locks in Fallout be easier than those?) but the story is just plain depressing.
I was on one quest(Slight spoilers here) where I had to save this kid from some monsters after they killed his dad, and I eventually did it but he had to wait for me to find a place for him to live. So in order: Dad and son hang out in the wasteland devastation, dad dies, PC saves kid, kid waits for PC to finish subquest by hiding in a metal barrel for a couple hours, PC finishes subquest, kid is free to wait for PC while PC finds him a home, and does so by moving back into his house and sitting in a chair in his bedroom for hours at a time.
And even over in places like megaton it is depressing, no one has any work to do like try to start a garden or something, all they do is busywork like sweeping and staying on the lookout for raiders.
Even when they are not doing work they are depressing; either drinking, eating or sleeping. There is no entertainment in this wasteland. No books(All destroyed), no games(all the chess pieces evaporated in the nuclear holocaust), no movies, nothing except alcohol and baseball. The game would not be anywhere near as depressing if there were actually people trying to scavenge or create methods of entertainment. I did not see a hopscotch or wallball line anywhere.
In a way I think this is a strong achievement on Bethesda's part, they have managed to inspire a strong emotion to me, and probably many other players. It is just not one I particularly enjoy feeling.
You would think a game is designed to be fun and entertaining, and in a way people trying to derive new entertainment from the wasteland would be a self parody, and make the game a certainly less serious work, but Fallout 3's serious side is a very intriguing and well done effect in a game.
I have to say I don't enjoy playing it for more than moderate periods of time now and again, but it should send a certainly powerful message to developers that this effect succeeded.
