29: A Game You Thought You Wouldn’t Like, But Ended Up Loving?
My friends raved about Fallout 3, but I wasn’t sure I’d like it. You may have picked up on this, but I’m RPGphobic…anything along those lines would put me off a game. I’d never picked up on the irony of me loving sports games (Pro Evo, Football Manager, Total Extreme Wrestling) that were full of stats and building up characters.
Anyway….I grabbed a copy of Fallout 3 and gave it a go. I wasn’t sure at first – the tutorial and initial level didn’t grab me and I found myself wondering if I had made a mistake.
Then something happened….
I escaped the Vault and the game did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Fallout 3 simply said “There’s the marker for your next mission, see you later.” I was left alone in the Wastelands to fend for myself. This blew my mind – I could do anything I wanted to, from continuing with the story to exploring every corner of the map. I wasn’t sure of myself at first though – I was still very bad at the game and had no supplies or health.
So I made the effort of learning how to play the game and the game rewarded me. I learned how to fight, battling raiders in the Wastelands. I took their armour and weapons, which made me stronger and allowed me to survive against tougher foes. Then I found a bed. An abandoned bed at the start of a long mission, near a lake with a Mirelurk in it, but it was my temporary base. I could now replenish my health and had a safe save spot.
I was hooked. There were no more doubts about whether Fallout 3 was for me. I was addicted. I realised that if I persevered, the game would reward my efforts and tell me a great story along the way. Getting a place in Megaton was another big step – I now had storage, a shop and some security. After that, Fallout 3 became an addiction and I would play it all night and when I could at weekends. I ended up putting 70 hours into the main game and Broken Steel…not bad going for a game I didn’t think I’d like!
Art of Redress 