The Mutant Behind the Curtain
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Why is this? Fallout 3 succeeds whenever it tries to present you with the blunt, unimaginative side of its activities: you can kill anything, in tens of different ways, as long as you try hard enough. You can harvest enemies for multiple kinds of items and goods, lay live explosives in their backpacks, cripple their legs with poison, listen to the lost travelogues of a doomed family, discover ancient communication towers, and basically soak up the wilderness around you.
However, what Fallout 3 completely fails to do is make any of these varied experiences feel personal, reliable, or (realistic,) to use a difficult term. I've never felt a moment of empathy, understanding, or connection with Fallout 3. I am always oppressively aware of the bounds, possibilities and failures of my world. They stare me in the face, never hidden, disguised or integrated into the fabric of the world. This game flaunts its man behind the curtain, whereas other games try to dress him up or explain him away. Fallout 3 presents me with a boundless, versatile gameplay system, but presents a bounded or nonexistent narrative system.
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To an Outcast player, just as exciting as the various pirouettes and flips that my character expertly performs, are the story and characters. Like Geralt, Kyle Katarn and his plight do nothing but reinforce my belief in his world. Try jumping in Fallout 3, or opening a door, or having a conversation with your father, and tell me that any of it reinforces anything but what you are trying to forget: that what you're playing is a simulation, and a stilted, painfully mechanical one at that. The people I meet are never people, they're quest givers, sellers, doctors or enemies.
Enemies and friends alike serve no purpose but to talk to you or attack you. Their lives, such as they are, are completely dictated by your every move. Never do they attempt to trick you into believing in their autonomy or self-sufficiency. When you stumble upon a suspicious underground cult of a (Family) in Fallout 3, you stumble upon a bunch of talking heads: they couldn't be less like the (Family) they're supposed to be.
