Half Gamer Half Crab

I've been playing quite a bit of Fallout 3 since it came out. And overall, I'm very taken with it. It's compelling, engaging, and highly enjoyable. However, when it comes to the plot there are some major problems. This isn't exactly a problem in a game like Tekken, but given the pedigree of Fallout, it's a big issue.

The first of these problems is in timescale. The game is set two hundred years after the bombs fell. It feels much more like it's 20 years later; even if this was set parallel to Fallout 1 it would be a stretch. As it stands it's a massive problem to suspend one's disbelief; this is doubly true considering the situation during Fallout 2, where several cities have moved beyond survival and are outright flourishing (The NCR is the most obvious example here, working to reunify all of California, and presiding over nearly a million citizens IIRC). The situation is different on the East Coast, but it shouldn't be this different. It's also in the smaller things. Paper and cardboard which should have long since rotted remains. Food which has sat in corrosive cans for two centuries is still entirely edible. There is NO agriculture whatsoever. I know the Fallout universe is based on Science! and not science, but it is still jarring sometimes.

The second, much bigger problem is in the ending. I don't wish to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that the supposed 200 endings are not in existence. Of the three things in the ending you can influence (Which are not nuanced; my character did something for one reason, the ending acted as if he'd done it for entirely another.), two come in literally the last minute of gameplay. There is no slideshow and narration of the consequences of your actions throughout the Wasteland, nothing like that. Hugely disappointing. I enjoyed Fallout 3 greatly until the last half hour or so. I don't expect I will be finishing the game again anytime soon.

Red Alert 3 has improved in my estimation, but not enough to rate it against the second. One problem I did manage to identify was the length of campaign missions. What should have been a mission in its entirity turned into just the first part of something larger; I had the resources and units to deal with it, but I had no desire to. It felt like I had played enough, achieved my objective, and that I deserved my reward in the cutscenes. Then again, if I'm finding the game is only worth playing for the cutscenes, that says something pretty serious.

Gears of War 2 this weekend.