As I dig deeper into Ulysses I realize that fuck all I'm not that good at what I do. Oh, sure, I love to write, but when I examine and pull away the complexities of James Joyce it just reminds me how pale I compare. Of course, that is a idiotic thing to compare to, it's Joyce, it would be like comparing a line doodle to Rembrandt.
This comparison hammers home the point that I'm not cool. The cool kids don't think about how they stand up to Joyce. Maybe I should compare myself to Dean Koontz...I'm fairly sure I can trash his work in my sleep.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Silent HIll, Appaloosa, REVIEW!
On this weeks…well, wait, I’m not doing this weekly so, shit…this month’s first and maybe only post will be discussing a few things, and I’ll be relatively short in my rambling to myself via a digital medium.
Silent Hill 5
Well, here it is, the long awaited return of a classic franchise that hopped to put to rest the horrible, shameful memories of Silent Hill: The Room. Yes ladies and things, there was a Silent Hill game that had portions in 1st POV…for walking around your crappy, dirty, evil apartment, that periodically had heads that floated down your window. Silent Hill 5: Homecoming has you fill the angst and guilt-ridden shoes of one Alex Sheppard, on his way home by way of military hospital discharge. After a horrible nightmare straight from Jacob’s Ladder filled with faceless nurses with dynamite bodies that game me strange feelings in my Levi’s, you wake up on your way home to Sheppard’s Glen, which must be a suburb or prefecture of Silent Hill cause its chock full of bat shit craziness and skinless dogs. A return to the family hacienda has your asshole dad missing, your ineffectual mother near catatonic, and your little bro running around monster infested streets and buildings with not a worry. It seems monsters do not have an interest in little boys, they prefer to get their deformed mitts on Alex’s post-traumatic stress disorder frame.
Sounds good right? Well, for the most part it is. I will say this with unwavering conviction: this game is much better that The Room, about as good as Silent Hill 3, and a pale comparison to Silent Hill 2. Double Helix games, taking the reins from Konami’s in house studio, turns out a solid game that nails the visual element of Silent Hill, and great game interface. What is missing is something of the soul of Silent Hill, that little dark energy so prevalent in the second game. The puzzles are few, the enemies plentiful, the ammunition scarce, and the melee combat entertaining. One on one it turns into a game of dodge and counter, something Silent Hill natives might find annoying but I think they remember the first 3 game’s combat systems with a Kincaid like nostalgia, forgetting the cursing and swearing that occurred when Harry or James whiffed one past a freaky little monster only to eat knife attacks for their troubles. I liked it, something different for the kids. In groups it become problematic with the camera limiting your field of vision, but most enemies are nice enough to take a long time to swing at you when they aren’t your main target. Gone, and most lamented, is some of the small extra craziness that made Silent Hill so disturbing. I searched high and low for an equivalent to “There was a hole here, but now it is gone”, and I cried anguish when I found none. There wasn’t enough ambiance to the game; instead it is more like a dungeon crawl. You go to a place, get a giant hint where to go, go there, kill shit, boss fight, crazy transition, walk to the next place, rinse repeat ad nausea. Door, shit yeah we got doors, but 98% of em are locked or broken or fucked up. They give you the veneer of exploration, the matte painting of a vivid landscape, but when you get close you see it’s really a prop tree and cardboard cutouts.
Should you play it? Yeah, if you played the others play this one. Half way through the story picks up nicely and you get a good mindfucking that is the hallmark of Silent Hill. Just remember this is now an action game, not a horror game. You want horror? Go get Dead Space.
Appaloosa
Ed Harris directs this tight, atmospheric tale of two men: a stiff, unimaginative but earnest and true law man with his equally succinct and learned partner who come to the titular town to replace the recently assassinated marshal. Harris and Viggo “For Fordo” Mortensen meet swarmy but instantly enjoyable Randall Bragg, portrayed by Jeremy “Simon Gruber” Irons. The two men, experts in the “peacekeeping” business, are give carte blanche on the town and are charged with bringing rancher and territorial king Bragg to justice. Into this is mixed Renée Zellweger, newly arrived non-prostitute that gains Harris’ attention. She actually turns out to be a complete whore, just not a prostitute. The real gold here is between Harris and Viggo, as their banter invokes a sense of deep friendship. The language between the two is stripped of clutter and noise, and honed down to the true, essential truth of the statement. Yes means yes, and no is no. A running humorous note is Harris grasping at a specific word, turning to Viggo to supply it. The dialogue may unnerve people, not with what is said, but the speed in which it is said. The pace of life is slower in this time, and it is reflected in the tempo. There are slightly pregnant pauses in discussions, which I found genuine and engaging. Here, in this place, people are representations of absolutes. Harris and Viggo are not law men, they are the law. It is a world of personal importance, and far from urban society they are masters of their own kingdoms, be it the cattle ranch or the main street.
Jeremy Iron captures “villain” better than most actors, a man that you can’t truly hate because goddamn he is likeable. Not some black hat wearing cliché, Irons is an embodiment of men possessing authority instead of acquiescing to it. He is lord of his domain, and will dispense justice in his own fashion, and clashing with Harris, they embody the immovable object and the unstoppable force. There is a great sense of alienation and isolation in this film, evoking a sense of immensity in the natural world that one could only experience with films of deep space, as Harris makes the New Mexico territory as vast and absolute as a distant galaxy. So far removed from urban society what evolves in this place is a drastic sense of unity and community, where the individual becomes increasingly important to the overall good, and the need to have harmonious conduct requires the strictest and harshest sense of law and order.
Oh, and then Lance Henriksen shows up…if you know anything about Lance Henriksen you know what he’s going to do.
A great modern western, this and 3:10 to Yuma have become my modern classics.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Keanu Reeves and Depressing L.A.: The "Harsh L.A." Trilogy
I finished watching Street Kings the other day with my friends and came to the realization that Los Angeles must be the scariest fucking place on this mad little planet we call home. This epiphany was slow in realizing but has been cemented as immutable fact by watching the “Harsh L.A” trilogy, as I call it: Training Day, Harsh Times, and Street Kings. If you ever thought of going to visit the city on the coast with its abundance of star homes map sellers, struggling bands confident of their edge and relevance, young actors following the “good looks” acting school, and surfer F.B.I agents, then I advise you to watch these three films and then make your travel plans somewhere else…like Iowa. The brainchild of David Ayer in some fashion, as writer of the first two and director of the last two, this trilogy of human suffering follows the protagonist through a day or more of life altering hijinks and brutality in the worst parts the city has to offer. I say protagonist because, with the exception of Ethan Hawke in Training Day, all the primary leads are defined as some shade of villain, be it the rogue cop or the psychotic soldier, inhabiting a world drowning in a muted sea of grey shades, where everyone sits on the dirty end of the anti-hero slide rule.
Being an evil bitter fuck that I am, I found all three of these films fantastically entertaining, well acted, but having a tendency to telegraph their hits with the subtly of the fat guy trying to pick up on chicks in a bar…drunk…and naked. Training Day stands as the only one of the three that keeps its mindfuck turnabout until the end, but because it injects a healthy does of dread throughout the film as Denzel Washington manipulates every living creature he encounters, the view is left to hold that gigantic shoe right above their heads for an hour just waiting for that sumbitch to fall. You know he is going to fuck with Ethan Hawke; it is just a matter of severity and distance. It falls into that “what the hell just happened” category of films that demand a second or third viewing to see just how far ahead of the pack the evil fucker was and to watch exactly where Washington first set up his dominos to fall. Remembering back to the 2002 Oscars I recalled with great distain and much gnashing of teeth when Denzel was the one who took the gold plated art deco mantelpiece home because I realized with my powerful alien brain that his work did not stand toe to toe with Russell Crowe’s crazy math genius guy and Tom Wilkinson’s murdering British father. I thought it lacked something, didn’t hold up. Well Mr. Alien is humble enough to report that he replaced that incorrect thinking, well, upgraded to a more “correct” mindset. I wasn’t wrong!!! I just had to modify my opinion. Washington’s Alonzo was the grand trickster, the puppet master that lost control of the strings. His machinations to survive in a brutal world make him appealing and horrendous at the same time.
Christian Bale’s Jim Luther Davis in Harsh Times had no suck dichotomy. I won’t spend as much time on this movie because I watched it twice…and it was one time too many. It was not bad in any way; far from it Harsh Times was a tightly directed and powerfully acted movie, with Christian Bale playing a dysfunctional and destructive ex-soldier whose very presence ruins the lives of those around him. When I say that one time was too many I mean that this movie is so dark, so depressing, with an ending that is fitting but hardly uplifting that I wanted to blow my corrosive brains out to escape its life eroding miasma. Some folks like the dark endings, the non “Hollywood” ending where shit just sometimes don’t work out and the world turns to fuck. Not this alien. Give me a happy, unrealistic, fuckbrain ending any day of the week, because life sucks donkey balls already, I don’t need a reminded of it that costs ten dollars and takes an hour and half to make its point. David Ayer takes the audience on the dark decent of Davis’ life as he pulls his friend Mike Alonzo, played by pre-Planet Terror Freddy Rodríguez, into the impossible black world of the Los Angeles street life. Bale rocks, Ayer is sharp, and this movie is more depressing than watching Paul W.S. Anderson fuck up Aliens vs. Predator.
Finally, we come to Ayer’s magnum opus with Street Kings, with a return of Keanu Reeves to the one kind of character he can do somewhat well: a cop. When I watched this movie I knew who was dirty as fuck, who the mastermind was, who was going to get fucked over, who was going to die, and who was the guy that the hero can trust, and I knew this after seeing the respective characters five seconds after they came on screen. Oh, that is another thing, this movie had so many god damn interesting cameos that my friends began to take bets on which oddly casted actor would show up. Cheeseburger Eddie followed by House and Cedric the Entertainer with a little bit of Human Torch for flavor. Chris Evans, playing the bright eyed and somewhat straight arrow detective was a great foil to play against Keanu’s confused dirty cop. I say confused because Keanu always plays his characters with a dose of befuddlement. From southern lawyer to English…whatever the fuck Jonathan Harker was…to dirty cop, Keanu always seems to not quite understand how he got the role, so he just seems to be going with it, and fuck me if I don’t love him for it. Oh, he will never win an Oscar, but he is always entertaining, that is what I pay to see. Keanu is dirty cop, you know, that cop that skirts on the dangerous edge to get the job done, not above planting evidence and shooting the occasional unarmed suspect in the name of true justice because the system is flawed and yada yada yada. You know this story, its dirty police force story, with dirty cop part of elite dirty squad headed by shady but charismatic leader (in this case Forrest Whitaker, being cool again and tapping some that Last King of Scotland insanity). Then there is by-the-book, out to get you I.A. officer (House’s Hugh Laurie) with new guy that might as well had “dead meat” tattooed on his forehead (Evans) with plot moving dead ex partner who found the conscious he dumped in the toilet, which lead to his aforementioned deadness (Cheeseburger Eddie…Terry Crews but Cheeseburger Eddie is a much better name). And once those pieces are in place, any viewer that has watched half a season of Law & Order or watched a cop movie in the last ten years knows what happens.
Street Kings was fun, lots of Keanu chewing through lines fun. He wasn’t the digital messiah and he wasn’t trying to butcher some accent, he was just California Guy, which he does fantastically well even though he isn’t a native. He’s cool, he’s fun, he inhabits dirty L.A. very well and I think, to date, this is one of his best characters. Like Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves is a great actor when you put him in a particular role. The Matrix was a great example of the unsure warrior hero that must find the Way inside him, and there is only one Matrix movie, those two other…things were a completely different franchise that just stole the name. This time he is in the dirty cop family, specifically the dirty cop who is good, but does fucked up shit in the name of justice genus. His single-minded pursuit of justice for Cheeseburger Eddie’s demise has him pull roughshod over everyone, while crazy Last King has to keep him in check. He ends up shooting a lot of people, but its okay, they were fuckers. He approaches his world like the burnout, which has done all of the shitty stuff before so it’s so routine that it’s old hat. He is self destructive, single-minded, and sharp, and together entertains to no end. I love Keanu, especially in his worst roles; maybe I like watching his oddball style of acting/non-acting play out in different circumstances. He is inscrutable, and his talent and lack their of demonstrate themselves in the same movies to different people. Go see it and let me know what you think.
To date though, nothing surpasses Point Break, and nothing ever will.
Being an evil bitter fuck that I am, I found all three of these films fantastically entertaining, well acted, but having a tendency to telegraph their hits with the subtly of the fat guy trying to pick up on chicks in a bar…drunk…and naked. Training Day stands as the only one of the three that keeps its mindfuck turnabout until the end, but because it injects a healthy does of dread throughout the film as Denzel Washington manipulates every living creature he encounters, the view is left to hold that gigantic shoe right above their heads for an hour just waiting for that sumbitch to fall. You know he is going to fuck with Ethan Hawke; it is just a matter of severity and distance. It falls into that “what the hell just happened” category of films that demand a second or third viewing to see just how far ahead of the pack the evil fucker was and to watch exactly where Washington first set up his dominos to fall. Remembering back to the 2002 Oscars I recalled with great distain and much gnashing of teeth when Denzel was the one who took the gold plated art deco mantelpiece home because I realized with my powerful alien brain that his work did not stand toe to toe with Russell Crowe’s crazy math genius guy and Tom Wilkinson’s murdering British father. I thought it lacked something, didn’t hold up. Well Mr. Alien is humble enough to report that he replaced that incorrect thinking, well, upgraded to a more “correct” mindset. I wasn’t wrong!!! I just had to modify my opinion. Washington’s Alonzo was the grand trickster, the puppet master that lost control of the strings. His machinations to survive in a brutal world make him appealing and horrendous at the same time.
Christian Bale’s Jim Luther Davis in Harsh Times had no suck dichotomy. I won’t spend as much time on this movie because I watched it twice…and it was one time too many. It was not bad in any way; far from it Harsh Times was a tightly directed and powerfully acted movie, with Christian Bale playing a dysfunctional and destructive ex-soldier whose very presence ruins the lives of those around him. When I say that one time was too many I mean that this movie is so dark, so depressing, with an ending that is fitting but hardly uplifting that I wanted to blow my corrosive brains out to escape its life eroding miasma. Some folks like the dark endings, the non “Hollywood” ending where shit just sometimes don’t work out and the world turns to fuck. Not this alien. Give me a happy, unrealistic, fuckbrain ending any day of the week, because life sucks donkey balls already, I don’t need a reminded of it that costs ten dollars and takes an hour and half to make its point. David Ayer takes the audience on the dark decent of Davis’ life as he pulls his friend Mike Alonzo, played by pre-Planet Terror Freddy Rodríguez, into the impossible black world of the Los Angeles street life. Bale rocks, Ayer is sharp, and this movie is more depressing than watching Paul W.S. Anderson fuck up Aliens vs. Predator.
Finally, we come to Ayer’s magnum opus with Street Kings, with a return of Keanu Reeves to the one kind of character he can do somewhat well: a cop. When I watched this movie I knew who was dirty as fuck, who the mastermind was, who was going to get fucked over, who was going to die, and who was the guy that the hero can trust, and I knew this after seeing the respective characters five seconds after they came on screen. Oh, that is another thing, this movie had so many god damn interesting cameos that my friends began to take bets on which oddly casted actor would show up. Cheeseburger Eddie followed by House and Cedric the Entertainer with a little bit of Human Torch for flavor. Chris Evans, playing the bright eyed and somewhat straight arrow detective was a great foil to play against Keanu’s confused dirty cop. I say confused because Keanu always plays his characters with a dose of befuddlement. From southern lawyer to English…whatever the fuck Jonathan Harker was…to dirty cop, Keanu always seems to not quite understand how he got the role, so he just seems to be going with it, and fuck me if I don’t love him for it. Oh, he will never win an Oscar, but he is always entertaining, that is what I pay to see. Keanu is dirty cop, you know, that cop that skirts on the dangerous edge to get the job done, not above planting evidence and shooting the occasional unarmed suspect in the name of true justice because the system is flawed and yada yada yada. You know this story, its dirty police force story, with dirty cop part of elite dirty squad headed by shady but charismatic leader (in this case Forrest Whitaker, being cool again and tapping some that Last King of Scotland insanity). Then there is by-the-book, out to get you I.A. officer (House’s Hugh Laurie) with new guy that might as well had “dead meat” tattooed on his forehead (Evans) with plot moving dead ex partner who found the conscious he dumped in the toilet, which lead to his aforementioned deadness (Cheeseburger Eddie…Terry Crews but Cheeseburger Eddie is a much better name). And once those pieces are in place, any viewer that has watched half a season of Law & Order or watched a cop movie in the last ten years knows what happens.
Street Kings was fun, lots of Keanu chewing through lines fun. He wasn’t the digital messiah and he wasn’t trying to butcher some accent, he was just California Guy, which he does fantastically well even though he isn’t a native. He’s cool, he’s fun, he inhabits dirty L.A. very well and I think, to date, this is one of his best characters. Like Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves is a great actor when you put him in a particular role. The Matrix was a great example of the unsure warrior hero that must find the Way inside him, and there is only one Matrix movie, those two other…things were a completely different franchise that just stole the name. This time he is in the dirty cop family, specifically the dirty cop who is good, but does fucked up shit in the name of justice genus. His single-minded pursuit of justice for Cheeseburger Eddie’s demise has him pull roughshod over everyone, while crazy Last King has to keep him in check. He ends up shooting a lot of people, but its okay, they were fuckers. He approaches his world like the burnout, which has done all of the shitty stuff before so it’s so routine that it’s old hat. He is self destructive, single-minded, and sharp, and together entertains to no end. I love Keanu, especially in his worst roles; maybe I like watching his oddball style of acting/non-acting play out in different circumstances. He is inscrutable, and his talent and lack their of demonstrate themselves in the same movies to different people. Go see it and let me know what you think.
To date though, nothing surpasses Point Break, and nothing ever will.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
It Begins: Fallout and The Rolling Stones
You weren’t there; you couldn’t know what it was like, at that moment, to be part of something spectacular.
I’m sure this phrase has been said many times over the centuries, by people who were witness or apart of something memorable, at least for them, and that experience could not be repeated for anyone else. Those who had the abysmal fortune to miss out on the experience are somehow lesser for it, and can never truly know what great, miraculous event they missed out on.
There are specific examples one could point too, but for the gaming community, to which I call myself a member, the Fallout event would be held in high esteem as an embodiment of a perfect moment in time, when someone playing the game realized “this, this is the thing, the great thing, and never again will I experience anything like it”. It was momentous; it was our Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in the 70’s. The boot up, the loading screen, the Ink Spots with their iconic song “Maybe”, and Ron Perlman’s profound, legendary statement:
“War, War Never Changes”.
Did we know then? Did we realize, truly see, that this game was a benchmark, something that would be talked about and brought to the discussion time and time again as a historical chapter? Probably not, we just saw it as a fantastic game, something with weeks worth of replay, deep customization of the character, and black humor of a world after the fall peppered with radioactive ghouls and an inspired use of retro futurism.
I bring up this topic because the time is fast approaching when Bethesda Softworks, creators of The Elder Scroll series of games, will unveil the third installment of the Fallout series to a slavering gaming public that cannot get enough information, screens, movies, and demos to satisfy their ravenous hunger for the return of the king. For those that weren’t there, that didn’t see the beginning, Fallout was a game created in 1997 by Interplay, a software company that has since become defunct. Technically still a software company in the same way that Doritos is technically still a food; both are on the books as what they clam to be, but provide you with nothing of value or nutrients. Before Interplay went tits up, they were kings of the gaming community producing such memorable games as The Bard’s Tale and, under their Black Isle Studios division, Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. Fallout emerged on the scene to tell the story of a post atomic California, eighty-four years after the world ended in atomic fire. Using a mixture of 1950’s sci-fi pulp comics, pop culture, black humor and sharp writing, Fallout created a world populated by Super Mutants and cannibalistic raiders pitted against regular, if slightly irradiated, people and the firearms they were packing. Into this emerges The Vault Dweller, a hard luck hero sent out from Vault 13, one of 122 underground cities meant to house survivors to wait out the nuclear fallout and resettle the world. Vault 13 has remained sealed away for all this time, and only sends out one of their own to replace a damaged water purification chip (complete with vacuum tubes for transistors). What follows is a turn based RPG changing your naïve and inexperienced hero into either a paragon of justice or a vicious beserking killer, your choice based on a myriad of available options on how you want to interact with the world.
Interplay followed up with Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, and Bankruptcy, and the series fell into silence. Bethesda Softworks bought the Fallout IP and went to forging the third game, and held in their keyboard bruised fingers the hopes and dreams of vigilant fans who have breathed desperate air into the slowly dying Fallout fire for years. With the new gameplay crafted on top next generation systems the fans wait, pensive and poised, ready to pour forth adulation at the brilliance of Bethesda’s craftsmanship or bitter vituperation at the treachery of broken dreams, turning a beloved idea into common drudgery. I subscribe to the former possibility.
Reading thus far, you, my faceless, voiceless, but possibly sexy and gorgeous female reader, may wish to partake of the refreshing pool of Fallout’s rejuvenating gameplay, and I whole-heartedly urge you too, but no matter how much you may regard the game in positive light, you cannot join the club. Like those that watched KISS perform live for the first time, or heard Robert Plant belt out those engaging lyrics, those that played Fallout in 97’ hold tight the memories of destroying the Master’s vats full of FEV, or arming the bomb beneath the Cathedral and running as the seconds ticked down because their Science skill wasn’t high enough to give them more than 30 seconds to flee. We were there, when it was new and fresh and games didn’t give you instant gratification and online shooters were not the sole property of foul-mouthed frat boys yelling “noob” while their avatars gave you a virtual tea bagging. The keepers of the faith stand as judges to what will come, to hold Fallout 3 on the scales against the feather of Fallout’s purity, and for those that weren’t there the magnitude of its rise and fall will not hold the same world ending significance. Play it, enjoy it, but thank your maker you don’t have to hold the weight of the judgment on your shoulders, the years of hoping against hope that the wastelands would open up again.
I can’t help but remember my time in line for Episode 1, and standing next to a man dressed in Jedi robes. I was no large fan of Star Wars, having been too young to see it in the theaters, to be there, but I thought I held the same level of excitement has my fellow moviegoer. When the lights came back on after a few hours of bizarre story choices and digital polygon on polygon violence, I saw that same man leave the theater with his friends. Some of the packed house were ecstatic, others indifferent, but as I saw that man walk to his car, I saw something far worse, far darker and horrifying.
I saw defeat of the dream.
I could not truly empathize with that man then, could not share his pain, because while I thought the movie was lackluster, it did not affect me in any profound way. I did not share that man’s pain of decades of wait, of expecting brilliance but being presented with wooden banality. Now I stand on that same precipice he once looked out on, and hope that when the clouds part before me I see the glory of the kingdom come again, the return of radioactive dreams. A return to a game that I hope holds true to Ron Perlman’s maxim.
War, War Never Changes.
I’m sure this phrase has been said many times over the centuries, by people who were witness or apart of something memorable, at least for them, and that experience could not be repeated for anyone else. Those who had the abysmal fortune to miss out on the experience are somehow lesser for it, and can never truly know what great, miraculous event they missed out on.
There are specific examples one could point too, but for the gaming community, to which I call myself a member, the Fallout event would be held in high esteem as an embodiment of a perfect moment in time, when someone playing the game realized “this, this is the thing, the great thing, and never again will I experience anything like it”. It was momentous; it was our Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden in the 70’s. The boot up, the loading screen, the Ink Spots with their iconic song “Maybe”, and Ron Perlman’s profound, legendary statement:
“War, War Never Changes”.
Did we know then? Did we realize, truly see, that this game was a benchmark, something that would be talked about and brought to the discussion time and time again as a historical chapter? Probably not, we just saw it as a fantastic game, something with weeks worth of replay, deep customization of the character, and black humor of a world after the fall peppered with radioactive ghouls and an inspired use of retro futurism.
I bring up this topic because the time is fast approaching when Bethesda Softworks, creators of The Elder Scroll series of games, will unveil the third installment of the Fallout series to a slavering gaming public that cannot get enough information, screens, movies, and demos to satisfy their ravenous hunger for the return of the king. For those that weren’t there, that didn’t see the beginning, Fallout was a game created in 1997 by Interplay, a software company that has since become defunct. Technically still a software company in the same way that Doritos is technically still a food; both are on the books as what they clam to be, but provide you with nothing of value or nutrients. Before Interplay went tits up, they were kings of the gaming community producing such memorable games as The Bard’s Tale and, under their Black Isle Studios division, Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. Fallout emerged on the scene to tell the story of a post atomic California, eighty-four years after the world ended in atomic fire. Using a mixture of 1950’s sci-fi pulp comics, pop culture, black humor and sharp writing, Fallout created a world populated by Super Mutants and cannibalistic raiders pitted against regular, if slightly irradiated, people and the firearms they were packing. Into this emerges The Vault Dweller, a hard luck hero sent out from Vault 13, one of 122 underground cities meant to house survivors to wait out the nuclear fallout and resettle the world. Vault 13 has remained sealed away for all this time, and only sends out one of their own to replace a damaged water purification chip (complete with vacuum tubes for transistors). What follows is a turn based RPG changing your naïve and inexperienced hero into either a paragon of justice or a vicious beserking killer, your choice based on a myriad of available options on how you want to interact with the world.
Interplay followed up with Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, and Bankruptcy, and the series fell into silence. Bethesda Softworks bought the Fallout IP and went to forging the third game, and held in their keyboard bruised fingers the hopes and dreams of vigilant fans who have breathed desperate air into the slowly dying Fallout fire for years. With the new gameplay crafted on top next generation systems the fans wait, pensive and poised, ready to pour forth adulation at the brilliance of Bethesda’s craftsmanship or bitter vituperation at the treachery of broken dreams, turning a beloved idea into common drudgery. I subscribe to the former possibility.
Reading thus far, you, my faceless, voiceless, but possibly sexy and gorgeous female reader, may wish to partake of the refreshing pool of Fallout’s rejuvenating gameplay, and I whole-heartedly urge you too, but no matter how much you may regard the game in positive light, you cannot join the club. Like those that watched KISS perform live for the first time, or heard Robert Plant belt out those engaging lyrics, those that played Fallout in 97’ hold tight the memories of destroying the Master’s vats full of FEV, or arming the bomb beneath the Cathedral and running as the seconds ticked down because their Science skill wasn’t high enough to give them more than 30 seconds to flee. We were there, when it was new and fresh and games didn’t give you instant gratification and online shooters were not the sole property of foul-mouthed frat boys yelling “noob” while their avatars gave you a virtual tea bagging. The keepers of the faith stand as judges to what will come, to hold Fallout 3 on the scales against the feather of Fallout’s purity, and for those that weren’t there the magnitude of its rise and fall will not hold the same world ending significance. Play it, enjoy it, but thank your maker you don’t have to hold the weight of the judgment on your shoulders, the years of hoping against hope that the wastelands would open up again.
I can’t help but remember my time in line for Episode 1, and standing next to a man dressed in Jedi robes. I was no large fan of Star Wars, having been too young to see it in the theaters, to be there, but I thought I held the same level of excitement has my fellow moviegoer. When the lights came back on after a few hours of bizarre story choices and digital polygon on polygon violence, I saw that same man leave the theater with his friends. Some of the packed house were ecstatic, others indifferent, but as I saw that man walk to his car, I saw something far worse, far darker and horrifying.
I saw defeat of the dream.
I could not truly empathize with that man then, could not share his pain, because while I thought the movie was lackluster, it did not affect me in any profound way. I did not share that man’s pain of decades of wait, of expecting brilliance but being presented with wooden banality. Now I stand on that same precipice he once looked out on, and hope that when the clouds part before me I see the glory of the kingdom come again, the return of radioactive dreams. A return to a game that I hope holds true to Ron Perlman’s maxim.
War, War Never Changes.
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