More lab courtesy haiku

It's time once again to remind your labmates how to behave, seventeen syllables at a time.

Dust and detritus of past ages brushed away — leave balances clean!

Microbe-encrusted, reeking of death: your uncleaned centrifuge bottles.

If it cannot touch your skin, it must not touch my keyboard. Remove gloves!

Banshee scream boiling precious samples — don't mess with the sonicator!

Chemicals, hazards, trailing you in the hallways... Lab coats stay in labs.

Although you're wearing headphones, we can all still hear you singing along.

Unlabeled buffers may sometimes be used to make your morning coffee.

Washing glassware may not be your job, but please rinse that salty crust off!

The bear seeks a lost cub — I find my pipetman on your filthy bench.

Vapor will corrode them — store pipetmen upright, with tips ejected.

It takes five minutes to make destain — replenish the carboy when low.

Hiding that ruined column will not magically make it fix itself.

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Ecce, soror

During the course of play, the first-person shooter Bioshock repeatedly presents the player/character with a moral choice. Amidst the ruin of its underwater city, Rapture, a number of small girls wander, girls who possess a resource (ADAM) the player/character desperately needs. Upon defeating the girls' monstrous guardians, the player can choose to kill ("harvest") the child, gaining a large quantity ADAM, or he can choose to save the girl, receiving half as much ADAM and a vague promise of future help from another character. If the player saves a "little sister", he is treated to a short scene in which she thanks him, then runs off. If he chooses to destroy her he sees... nothing.

That's not strictly true, of course. The game shows the player/character reaching towards the girl (the on-screen hand seems to be subtly larger than in the "save" option), and transitions via a swirling effect to an image of the parasite the player/character has just ripped from her body. The girl's body is nowhere to be found. Although the player is meant to believe that the character has just eviscerated a small child in order to gain a strategic advantage, no evidence of the awful crime remains to confront him. Due to the limitations of the engine, the other dead bodies in Bioshock are often temporary, but they at least exist for a moment. The game's most horrible killings are also those that leave no physical trace at all beyond the advantage they confer on the player.

I find this disturbing because it speaks to an ethos that is at peace with the idea of child murder as an intellectual act, but not a physical one. Regardless of what some reactionaries may say about games, I sincerely doubt that any of Bioshock's players could actually go through with the "harvest" if doing so involved a graphic depiction of evisceration. If Bioshock only forced the player to face a dead, bloody body, many would only be able to "harvest" once. Even considered on a purely intellectual level many gamers found Bioshock's options to be too much, and were unable to choose "harvesting". Yet I feel that games which require the player to choose an ethic ought to confront him with the moral horror of his choice. Killing another person, adult or child, is an awful act, and if developers are to be true to the idea of giving the player a morality simulation then they should not hold back on a graphic depiction of the consequences.

I don't mean to imply that developer cowardice is the only interpretation of the design. One can also take the distancing of the player from the act to suggest that the player/character is in denial about his moral agency. Rapture's creator, Andrew Ryan, continued to insist on his objectivist beliefs even as he solidified his totalitarian rule over the city; he was blind to his betrayal of his own principles. The player/character's inability to visualize his own brutality and its consequences may mirror Ryan's refusal to countenance his own moral failure. Because the player/character is a mirror of Ryan in many ways this interpretation has some resonance.

In addition, the choice not to confront the player with the moral horror of the choice to kill may be making a point about our own moral judgments. Nothing beyond a slightly disturbing ending punishes the player for choosing to kill the little sisters. When one does not have to consider the negative consequences, the decision to murder a young girl becomes almost trivial. I would deny, however, that it is necessary or admirable to emphasize this view. The triviality of murder under such circumstances is already a critical element of this and every other shooter. Acknowledging that a lack of moral perspective or an elimination of consequence enables monstrous actions is hardly interesting at this point.

Developers, of course, must contend with factors beside the limits of their creativity and artistic desire. The ESRB would certainly recoil, and anti-game reactionaries howl in protest, were any game to realistically depict the evisceration and murder of a young girl, or even showed the dead body resulting from such an act. In my opinion, however, allowing players to perform the act and not confronting them with the consequences is exactly the sort of behavior the watchdogs should be trying to prevent. The bloodlessness of murdering children in Bioshock does not make that depiction less disturbing, but more so. In its larger story, Bioshock expresses the thesis that abstract ideals falter in the face of real consequences. To shy away from those consequences is to stab at the heart of the game.

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How we taste umami

Although we still do not know the full breadth of our flavor-sensing capabilities, human beings are known to possess receptors for at least five basic tastes. Probably you have known about the sweet, sour, salty, and bitter flavors since you were in grade school, but the fifth, umami, was less widely accepted in the West until recently. Umami is a savory flavor element that is found in many foods, including tomatoes, parmesan cheese, truffles, and many kinds of meat and seafood. The umami taste primarily detects the amino acid glutamate (hence the popularity of the food additive monosodium glutamate, or MSG), but the effect is also intensified by the presence of the nucleotide inosine monophosphate (IMP). In a recent (open access) paper in PNAS, researchers from two corporations examined the umami taste receptor to understand how this happens.

The umami flavor is detected by a pair of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) that have an external venus flytrap (VFT) domain in addition to their classic 7-helix trans-membrane domain (TMD). This complex is closely related to the sensor for the sweet flavor: in fact one of the receptors (called T1R3) is the same in both sensors. It is the second receptor (T1R1 for umami, T1R2 for sweet) that determines what taste is recognized. What we don't know for sure is whether it is the TMD or the VFT of these receptors that identifies the flavor component.

In order to answer this question, the researchers performed an experiment known as a "domain swap". Using recombinant DNA technology they assembled two chimeric proteins, one with the VFT of umami and the TMD of sweet, and one with the VFT of sweet and the TMD of umami. They then inserted these proteins into cultured cells that would fluoresce when the receptors were activated. The authors suspected that the VFT is primarily responsible for binding the ligand. As you can see from figures 1 & 2 (this is an open access paper, so go ahead and take a look), the experiment bears this out. The chimera with the VFT of sweet caused a fluorescent response in the presence of compounds such as sucrose and aspartame, while the umami-VFT chimera reacted to glutamate and aspartate. You can also see in figure 2C that the presence of IMP dramatically enhanced the activity of glutamate in this chimera. This indicates that the VFT is also responsible for IMP synergy in the umami receptor.

The hurdle in going further than this is that no structure of the umami VFT is available, which makes it difficult to figure out exactly how everything fits together. However, T1R1 has a close evolutionary relationship to the metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR), and a crystal structure of that VFT is available. Using conserved and homologous residues as a guide, the authors made a model of the T1R1 fold from the mGluR data. Based on this model they predicted certain amino acids that would be essential for glutamate binding in T1R1 and then mutated them in order to measure the effect. Residues that were predicted by the model to interact with the zwitterionic amino acid backbone proved to be essential for ligand recognition. Interestingly, the amino acids that contact the side-chain carboxylic acid of glutamate in mGluR are not conserved in T1R1, and mutations at the matching sites do not alter glutamate binding. However, these mutations eliminate the effect of IMP.

In order to understand this behavior, the authors modeled the binding cleft in the closed state, with IMP and glutamate in place. Glutamate binds at the bottom of the cleft, with its side chain pointed outwards. This conformation puts several positively-charged residues from the two lobes of the VFT close together higher up in the cleft. The authors propose, in keeping with previous models of VFT behavior, that the binding of the glutamate lowers the energy barrier between the open and closed states of the domain, but that glutamate alone is not sufficient to hold the domain closed. Their model places IMP higher up in the cleft, where its negatively-charged phosphate interacts with the positive residues. Thus, IMP stabilizes the closed conformation of the VFT domain.

Some more work here would be welcome, particularly in the form of experimental crystal structures of the T1R1 VFT that can confirm the homology model. The VFT is rather large, but using a perdeuterated sample in a high-field magnet it might be possible to confirm the population-shift mechanism using NMR experiments. Lower-resolution techniques such as FRET may also be able to catch this stabilization behavior. If the model proves to be accurate, it would serve as an interesting example of positive allostery from a population shift.

Although these experiments only concerned the umami taste receptor, this allosteric mechanism may be a more general feature of certain GPCRs. The authors indicate that they have unpublished data showing similar behavior in the sweet receptor, and it may be possible to design an allosteric stabilizer for any GPCR with a VFT domain. Because the related mGluR receptors are involved in many neurological and psychological diseases, successful design of such activators may have some therapeutic value.

F. Zhang, B. Klebansky, R. M. Fine, H. Xu, A. Pronin, H. Liu, C. Tachdjian, X. Li (2008). Molecular mechanism for the umami taste synergism Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (52), 20930-20934 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810174106 OPEN ACCESS

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Downward Spiral

Corvus' January round table asks us to envision a game that preceded a favorite piece of literature. What game might have inspired The Iliad or Foundation? Well, I'm not going to deal in anything quite so epic. Instead I'm just going to imagine a game that might have inspired a poem I like by E.E. Cummings. This may not be what Corvus was going for, but it was an idea that came to mind and would not leave, so here you go.

I envision this as a browser-based flash game or a small downloadable. An impressionistic art style is what I would really prefer, given some of the early focus, but the later stages could also work with the heavily-lined visuals more common in these games.

The start-up screen for the game is an image of a tree standing alone in a lush field in summertime. Once the player has chosen to start the game by activating the window, the field of view zooms in on the top of the tree, finally focusing on a single yellow leaf, which immediately falls from its branch. From this point, all movements of the mouse result in gusts of wind. The player is free to move the mouse in any direction, but the maximum angle of the resulting "gust" will be 30° from horizontal. The ostensible aim of the game is to prevent the leaf from falling, but this is a losing battle for two reasons. Firstly, the leaf will not be able to exit the field of view, and the field of view will only travel downward in such a way that the leaf never enters the bottom fifth of the field. Secondly, the wind will not produce pure directional motion in the leaf, but rather chaotic tumbling.

The leaf begins descending through a green tree. The surrounding branches and leaves will move in response to the player's wind gusts. Starting about a fifth of the way down the green surrounding leaves will start transitioning to reds, purples, and dark browns. In order to assist the player's focus none of these leaves will be yellow. Once the color palette has transitioned completely the number of leaves on branches will begin to decrease (but none of them will fall off in the player's field of view). The player's aesthetic experience in this segment should be focused on the interplay of colors between leaves and sky, as well as light and shadow showing through them.

By about third of the way from the bottom the branches should be completely denuded (but still responsive to the wind gusts). The appearance of branches themselves should start decreasing in frequency until the field of view contains only the trunk and the leaf. The player's aesthetic experience in this region should be focused on the motions of the leaf itself. In keeping with this idea the chaotic tumbling of the leaf should be enhanced in some way.

As the leaf nears the ground the player sees that it is a white field of snow. Although this may have landscape features such as drifts, no living things should be in evidence: it is a fresh, deep snowfall. When the leaf lands on top of the snow the game ends. At this point the player's ability to perform any input ceases and more snow starts to fall, eventually burying the leaf.

During its descent the color of the leaf should fade from a bright yellow to a dull light brown. Its material behavior should also change. At the outset the leaf should be flat but flexible, changing its shape as it tumbles. During descent, however, it should gradually curl slightly at the edges and become a more rigid body. The color of the sky should fade from a light Carolina blue to a flat gray. Also during the descent the window should slowly zoom in on the leaf. At the outset the leaf should take up about 5% of the screen, growing to about 20% of the field of view at the end.

The E.E. Cummings poem I hope would be inspired by this game is "l(a":

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

I wanted the game to represent the explicit event while expressing the emotion. Obviously the verticality is important, but it's a natural part of the event (which is part of the brilliance of the poem). The simplicity of the game and spareness of the final stages are meant to connect with the linguistic efficiency of the poem. I suppose in one sense this isn't much of a game, because it's basically a way of playing with leaves, but I wanted it to display an unconventional attitude. The design relies heavily on gradients (of color, of shape, of element density), which doesn't really have much to do with the poem, but which I think would be critical to helping the emotion sneak up on the player.

I probably had more fun thinking that up than you had reading it, but fortunately everybody else has better entries. Go check them out!

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Long-range effects in the ribosome

Antibiotics such as chloramphenicol suppress infections by inhibiting bacteria from making proteins. They achieve this by binding to and blocking the peptidyl transferase center (PTC) of the ribosome, a large complex of RNA and protein that performs nearly polypeptide synthesis in living cells. Although PTC-binding antibiotics comprise several different families of compounds, mutations in the ribosome that confer resistance to one family often produce cross-resistance to other families. This is difficult to understand because the PTC itself is highly conserved and not very tolerant of mutations. In an upcoming paper (open access, read along) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the Weizman Institute of Science analyze several crystal structures of the ribosome to understand how this cross-resistance arises.

Davidovich et al. mapped nucleotide mutations known to confer resistance to PTC antibiotics onto x-ray crystal structures of the large ribosomal subunit from D. radiodurans in complex with antibiotics. One interesting facet of the resistance mutations became immediately apparent: they were almost all clustered on one side of the antibiotic binding site.

You can see this pretty clearly in Figure 2 panels B&D. Although the antibiotics (large pink surface) are surrounded by nucleotides, most of those that are on the left side (thin tan sticks) do not confer resistance if mutated. Resistance-conferring mutations instead cluster around the "rear wall" of the PTC (to the right). The authors explain that in this region ribosomal functions primarily rely on the sugar-phosphate backbone of the rRNA. Because the backbone elements are the same for all ribonucleotide bases, mutations in this region are more likely to be tolerated without significant loss of function.

Another striking feature of resistance mutations is visible in Figure 2 and quantified in Figure 3A, namely that many of these mutated bases do not contact the antibiotics directly. In particular, mutation of G2032 appears to play a role in conferring resistance to several different antibiotics. Overall, however, it appears that numerous long-range interactions can interfere with antibiotic binding.

The lynchpin of these interactions seems to be U2504, a base that directly contacts the bound antibiotic in most cases. Mutations to U2504 itself do not appear to be well-tolerated, but many of the long-range mutations occur in the layer of bases surrounding it. The authors describe in detail several mechanisms by which the observed mutations might increase the flexibility of U2504, allowing it to adopt positions that could allow continued protein synthesis while reducing the binding of antibiotics. The commonality of interactions with U2504, and the importance of the structural context of the surrounding nucleotides, explains why many mutations can give rise to cross-resistance.

The practical upshot of these findings is that they may serve as a guide for the design of future antibiotics. Since the majority of the drug-resistance mutations lie on the rear wall of the PTC, the effectiveness of these antibiotics may be enhanced by improving their binding to other parts of the site. With further modeling it may also be possible to design antibiotics that can compensate for flexibility at U2504. These findings also remind us that dynamics and long-range interactions can be important to the function of any biomolecule with a folded three-dimensional structure, not just proteins.

C. Davidovich, A. Bashan, A. Yonath (2008). Structural basis for cross-resistance to ribosomal PTC antibiotics Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (52), 20665-20670 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810826105 OPEN ACCESS

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It's about how you feel

The major controversy about Prince of Persia, even more divisive than its ending, has concerned the game's difficulty, or supposed lack thereof. Because the main character essentially cannot "die", and because the platforming is fairly easy to figure out, some hardcore fans of the preceding trilogy have reacted harshly against the new game. Defenders have responded that the game really isn't so easy, and also that it was intended to appeal to a broader, more casual audience. These things are true, but in a way I think these counterclaims don't go far enough. Prince of Persia is a very different game from the Sands of Time trilogy, with different aims. The complaint about excessive ease strikes me as a failure of reviewers to grasp the core ideas that the platforming segments convey.

The previous Prince of Persia trilogy featured a style of platforming in which each environment served as a pathfinding puzzle to be solved by directing the Prince to perform the correct sequence of movements. This kind of level design meant that areas were rarely traversed in continuous sequence. Instead, the player tended to move around in fits and starts, pausing frequently to decide where to go next (often involving a reversal of direction) and what moves were needed to get there. Often this could only be determined by trial and error, using the series' time reversal mechanic to erase mistakes — an idea that was woven thematically into the larger story of the trilogy.

Although the Prince of the new games uses a similar set of moves, the nature of the platforming is completely different. The player never has any need to decide which maneuver to use, because the environment provides copious visual cues at every opportunity. Pathfinding, of course, is simplified by Elika's guiding light, but this is rarely necessary. In most cases, the route between two points in the open world is quite linear. Moreover, once the player starts down one of these paths, the camera typically orients itself in such a way that the next immediate step along the way is positioned right in the center of the screen. The player is never left in doubt about what to do next (but often in doubt as to what he will do after that). Of course this will seem to be too easy if you are expecting environmental puzzles, because there aren't any, but their absence should clue you in to the fact that this game is doing something different from its predecessors.

The platforming in Prince of Persia is not meant to be an intellectual activity. It does not present a problem to solve, or reward making a plan. Rather, the platforming focuses on instinct and rhythm. The immediate effect of this is to created extended, fluid parkour sequences, but I think the intent goes beyond the simple physical representation. Despite their linearity, the platforming traversals inspire a feeling of exhilarating freedom, an idea that you can go anywhere in this world. This sensation survives the linearity because the rhythmic appearance of new interaction points prevents the player from ever surveying the whole of the traversal pathway. A player, having successfully learned to identify the immediately needed motion at each point, will feel confident and completely in control of his journey through the lands of the Ahura. The open-world design reinforces this sentiment.

It's important for the player to feel this way because this illusion of power, this certainty that he controls his own destiny is at the core of the Prince's character. He isn't right — he relies on Elika completely to make his way through the game world — but during the course of the game one starts to take her for granted, as does the Prince. The myopic concentration on the next immediate need perhaps mimics his inability to make good long-term judgments, and his nomadic nature might be reflected in the perpetual-motion extensions of the parkour sequences. The platforming is not a means of testing the player; it is a way of inspiring him to feel as the Prince does.

I think this interpretation informs an understanding of the game's failings. The arena-style combat, with its molasses tempo and arrhythmic quicktime events, feels constrained and restrictive. The flying and running plates force the player into a semi-preset path and cannot be navigated just by element recognition. This causes them to break up the flow of traversal and illusion of control. These segments have other flaws also, but their critical failing is that they are at odds with the feeling the rest of the game so carefully cultivates.

Video games are not all elaborate mechanisms for measuring manual dexterity. They tell stories, they teach, and they convey emotion. The requirement for skill ought to be assessed in light of the priorities of a particular game—not just in terms of the external factors such as audience, but also in terms of its own internal aims. Prince of Persia, despite its pedigree, is not a puzzle-platformer. The platforming segments are not primarily meant as a test of the player's intellect or reflexes. Rather, they seem meant to inspire certain feelings in the player, emotions that mirror those of the game's titular character. They should have been judged on this basis.

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Obligatory "Year in Games" Post 2008

Since I've revealed my game of the year as part of Michael Abbott's 3-Part Holiday Brainy Gamer Podcast Special (I'm in part 2, but listen to them all), I'll go ahead and cap off my view of the year in games. Go over there and listen to all three volumes, then come back for more of my views (or visit some of those other wonderful blogs). Hopefully this will tide you over while I'm out of town and away from high-throughput intertubes.

Please keep in mind while reading this that the number of great games I didn't play this year is almost as large as the number of great games that I did. Some of that is due to the fact that the genre just didn't interest me (Gears 2, Left 4 Dead), some if it is due to the fact that a bunch of really great, long games all got released at the almost the same damn time, and I just didn't have the time or money to get to some of them (Fable II, Far Cry 2). And then, I just don't own a PS3 so some potential greats (LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, PixelJunk Eden) got missed there as well. So if there's something you think really ought to be listed in the greats, just assume I never had a chance to play it.

I know I chose one single favorite for Michael's podcast, but that's not really how I felt about the year in games. There wasn't really, to my mind, one game that towered over all others. Instead of a big number one, allow me to designate...

Eight Games That Deserved Your Attention:
Braid
Not everyone will enjoy Braid, and I would not argue that everyone should. Although the game is easy enough to play, its puzzles can be very tough, and the underlying narrative is difficult to grasp. You don't owe Jonathan Blow a second chance to grab you if you find his design or prose off-putting. Despite its shortcomings, however, Braid may be one of the deepest games this year, one in which you can still find something new and interesting on your third or fourth play-through. Worlds 4 and 1 may be the most mind-blowing experiences available in a game this year.

Fallout 3
This game has its flaws and its rough spots, especially in organizing its central narrative. Nonetheless, the vast, desolate open world provides one of the most compelling experiences to be had this year. The Wasteland's richly-imagined Hobbesian state of nature argues poignantly against the idea that we as individuals or societies can successfully go it alone.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Lots of modes, lots of fun, lots of hard. I mean god damn this game gets hard real fast. Extremely pretty despite being graphically stripped to the bone, Geometry Wars 2 will suck down the hours very quickly.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village
In a year marked by spectacular high-resolution, open-world games built on violence, it's amazing that a 2-D adventure game based on brain teasers can seriously challenge for game of the year. But Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a wonderful, charming experience that never makes you feel like you've wasted your time. Why didn't anyone think of this before? Why haven't the sequels arrived here yet? Come on, Level 5, you're killing me!

No More Heroes
Like Braid, a lot of people found it to be off-putting in one aspect or another. Its emphasis on structure over content, however, and its vicious lampooning of popular culture, gamers, and games themselves is something everyone should try to wrap their minds around. The reason I chose it as my favorite is that it has done the most of any game this year. to change the way I think about games and my criticism of them.

Wii Fit
While the PS3 and XBox 360 have taken steps to position themselves as high-powered home entertainment devices, Nintendo has started taking its hardware more in the direction of a lifestyle choice. Derided by most of the hardcore crowd, Wii Fit may not even be a game in any traditional sense. But it serves as the year's strongest symbol of the waning importance of the existing hardcore base to Nintendo's strategy.

The World Ends With You
Braid made the most complete effort to fuse story and mechanics, but the year's best example of a game using mechanics to enforce its central ideas comes from The World Ends With You. Rewarding the characters with experience when the player turns off the DS and hangs out with his friends delivers the game's pro-friendship message more effectively than a dozen talky cutscenes.

World of Goo
Creepy and cute, charming and weird, World of Goo helps make the case that the puzzle game remains one of the more vital and creative genres. A surprising diversity of structural problems are presented, lightly layered in with metaphors about consumer society, beauty, and creativity. The goos are delicious, but they don't know it.

Pleasant Surprise:
de Blob
I bought this game in the calm before the storm primarily because some commenter at Mitch Krpata's blog just wouldn't shut up about it. It turned out to be really fun. Basically the aim is to turn a drab professional city into a bright, colorful party. Not everything it tries works, but overall de Blob succeeds in creating a fun experience good for all ages.

Unpleasant Surprise:
Tales of Vesperia
Please understand that this is coming from a person who genuinely loved Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss. I did not come to this expecting Vesperia to compete with the best of RPG storylines. However, the writing was slipshod and repetitive, the dungeon design made the whole game into a slog, the mechanics in general were excessively elaborate, and the ally AI hasn't improved measurably. The game's great graphical beauty and the one or two bright spots in its story can't rescue it. It was better than the dismal Tales of Legendia, but not by much.

Best Moment in a Game:
Entering the wasteland in Fallout 3
In leaving the Vault, you are truly born. Too bad you've been born into the Hobbesian state of nature.

Worst Moment In a Game:
The end of Prince of Persia
Congratulations! Now participate as we completely nullify your understanding of the characters, monetary investment in the game, and sense of achievement!

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot:
Osaka Castle, Yakuza 2
As Kiryu approaches, Osaka Castle splits in two, to reveal an identical Osaka Castle hidden beneath. Only this castle is made of gold. This fantastic transformation of a national landmark is never mentioned by the characters.

Genre in Crisis:
the JRPG
I think I'm through with them. The bloated faux-epic storylines, appalling voice acting, inane writing, and unrelenting reliance on grind have sapped most recent entries of all emotional impact and potential for meaning. The really vital recent games in the genre (Persona 3, The World Ends with You) have dealt in smaller stakes, connected more closely with characters, and used novel mechanics. Shake up your formulas and hire some damn writers.

Please be more careful with...
Found story elements
The idea that people record their most private thoughts out loud and then leave them lying around any old place boggles the mind and defeats the imagination. I like finding the pieces of a story for myself, but I prefer the approach of Fallout 3, where non-speaking parts of the environment tell the story, and the speech logs largely appear in reasonable places (Deus Ex had some of the same virtues). Done right, found story unfolds like an engaging mystery; done wrong, it comes off worse than a bland, talky, expository cutscene.

Bin This Practice:
The fall glut
For next year I am instituting a strict 2 game per month rule. That is, I will only buy two games that are released in a given month. I will not save the extras for next year anymore: I simply won't buy them, ever. The best you can hope for from me is that I'll rent. I'm willing to be a little more relaxed on indies and downloadables, but these tend to have a more sane release schedule anyway. Holding everything for fall is terrible for gamers and terrible for the industry: it crowds the market, drowns quality or quirky games beneath big-buzz titles, and led to several companies getting burned this year because the economy collapsed right before their prime release period. Take a lesson from every other entertainment industry and spread your releases out across the year. I'm not saying you can't have a few peak weekends, but dumping more than half the major releases in two months is a recipe for bad sales and confused consumers. Get your shit together, people. Or rather, spread it out.

What Happened To...
Fatal Frame 4
Seriously, what the hell happened? I saw some cool screens, Suda attached, a proposed October release date, and then... nothing. Did someone inadvertently exorcise the game from reality while taking a screenshot?

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Critical Thinking Compilation: Fallout 3

I've been meaning to do this for a while now, mostly so I don't have to keep digging things up. Now, finally, I'm going to try it for Bethesda's Fallout 3, and if I like it, and other people like it, then I'll probably start doing it for more games, new and old. What is it I'm doing? Well, look at the title. This is a critical thinking compilation.

It is not a review compilation. I am not interested in anything that provides a "score", explains what the writer loved/hated about it, or tries to tell the reader whether the game is worth the $60. Those are valuable services, but they are also incredibly easy to find using Google. This is something different. I am trying to make it easy for me, and my five six readers, to find analysis, which does not Google quite as efficiently. It can be about the theme, the plot, the mechanics, the art—anything as long as we're going beyond "well, I liked it". The goal is to compile a set of links to quality dissection and discussion from bloggers and other web voices. So, here we go. Expect this page to get updated regularly as long as I remember to do so.

I decided, after looking at a couple of formats, to arrange this post by a series of general topics that have formed core areas of the discussion. Obviously these links will be chock-full of spoilers, so be wary if you've yet to finish the game.

A wasteland rich in story materials

Although built from a relatively limited palette, the world of Fallout 3 feels vast and even boundless. In "The world's your oyster", Iroquois Pliskin compares this game with Oblivion and indicates that the key to its appeal is its ability to keep showing you something you haven't seen before. The limited repertoire of objects and textures is skillfully permuted to create environments that gently inspire players to develop their own stories about the world, as Denis Farr describes in "Seven for a secret never to be told". For an example of such a story, check out this example from Steven O'Dell.

The seeming richness (and safety) of the wasteland confused Justin Keverne initially, because it seemed out of place given the apocalyptic setting. He found it to be more vibrant and alive than the landscape of Far Cry 2. By contrast, Steven O'Dell felt that Fallout 3 kept a sense of danger intact throughout the game, even as the player grew more comfortable and confident in the wastes, through use of dangerous creatures like the Deathclaw. Keverne eventually came to the conclusion that the appearance of population and life was an illusion, that the clusters of houses that he had perceived as tiny villages were really just the last few vestiges of enormous sprawling suburbs. The desolation and emptiness of this world enhances the apparent importance of moral choices, as Allen Cook describes in "Hero of the Wastes". When there are so few people, killing even one feels like genocide, and saving even one feels incredibly important.

Of course, the Washington D.C. setting of the game provides a touchstone for the development of personal narratives. Michael Abbott details one such experience in "Second Thoughts", in which he also ponders his meta-experience of the game. This didn't work out for everyone, though. In "The Mutant Behind the Curtain", Thomas Cross explains that despite the richness of the world's many distractions it just doesn't connect emotionally for him. As Susan Arendt relates in "A Different Kind of Treasure", she found that the design of the world interfered with her experience of the game, particularly in the respect that she didn't get the kind of loot she was expecting.

Some writers felt that Fallout 3 actually constrained them from their desired character narrative. Scott Juster describes in "Role Playing in the Wastes" that his experience of the game simply didn't fit with the character that he had conceived. The mutual accommodation between character and DM typical of tabletop role-playing isn't possible in the context of a computer RPG, which may mean that players must be more flexible in their approach to their roles. Mitch Krpata felt reasonably comfortable with his character concept, but found that Fallout's inflexibility occasionally boxed him out of the karmic path he desired to take. The route to a desired moral outcome was at times needlessly obscure.

What you don't know...

Several authors have identified ignorance as a key way that Fallout 3 draws the player into the creation of a personal narrative. Spencer Greenwood argues in "Ignorance is Bliss" that the decision to supply the character with a minimum of information encourages exploration and experimentation in the context of the game world, in this as well as previous Fallout games. Similarly, Justin Keverne found that his immersion in the main quest was strongest at a point when the game stopped telling him exactly where to go. In "Wasteland Detective", he asks if the game might be at its best when it lets the player get lost.

In "The Wasteland of Forking Paths", Travis Megill points out that the presentation of the main quest encourages the player to explore. Although the central storyline involves a somewhat urgent attempt to save the world, the game hides this until the player is fairly far along in it. This disguise makes it more comfortable for the player to meander. The apparent lack of urgency and potential lack of structure in the main quest changes the way you approach the entire game. In "The Sisters", Duncan Fyfe suggests that these aspects make Fallout 3 less like a novel and more like a themed collection of short stories, explicitly comparing the game to James Joyce's Dubliners.

Mitch Krpata puts forward something of an opposing view in "How I learned to stop worrying and love Fallout". For him, the more obvious RPG aspects of the game, and his uncertainty about what exactly to do next, created something of an anxiety that he was playing the wrong way. For him, it was the fine details of the open world that finally got him relaxed enough to realize there was no wrong way. Borut Pfeifer touches on this feeling in "Your choice, and your fault", pointing out that players who forge an emotional connection with the game world may feel paralyzed by the unpredictable outcomes of their choices (and the feeling that the developers are out to screw them over).

Denis Farr, writing in "Birth of a role" about the character creation portion of the game, expresses some relief that Fallout 3 avoided a particular kind of ignorance, namely the "amnesia" trope. One of Fallout 3's strengths, in his view, is that the player doesn't have to ask who he is, but rather how he came to be who he is.

Immersion failure at the NPC interface

In contrast to the widely-praised open world, Fallout 3's NPCs have come in for some harsh criticism. Michael Abbott contributes the core of the critique in "Genius Jilted" and "People drive me crazy", which also cover some criticism of Fable II. The realistic feel of the world, for him, is entirely at odds with the behavior of NPCs who basically function as "human-esque information kiosks". He calls out the sometimes poorly-written dialogue and the wooden facial animations as sources of his problem. Thomas Cross expresses similar sentiments in "The Mutant Behind the Curtain", stating that the stilted interactions with NPCs are part of the way in which Fallout 3 flaunts its game-ness. Gamey behavior in the finale also troubled D. Riley, as he describes in "What about the oasis?" (for a similar take, see Ben's RAAAAGE).

Duncan Fyfe, on the other hand, feels that most of the NPCs work well enough for what the game is trying to do with them. In "Friends like these", he explains that the NPC interactions really start to break down once you bring the companions into the mix. Their failure to react to the discoveries that give the open world its emotional relevance highlights the fact that they are little more than walking gun turrets. Only Dogmeat, who we don't expect to have emotions, is a convincing character. Mitch Krpata found that immersion broke because the scripting of the game led to the NPCs noticing at once too little and too much, making an example of the Lincoln Memorial quest.

Beyond "good" and "evil"

The NPC writing didn't just foul up the immersion, it also fiddled unpleasantly with the game's approach to morality. In "Fun and loathing in Las Vegas Washington D.C.", Ben Abraham identifies a tension between the portrayal of certain characters and the feel of the game. In his opinion, Mr. Burke comes across as a very cartoonish, moustache-twirling villain that is inappropriate in the context of the gritty, realistic game world. The game seems to make judgments about characters, sometimes without asking the real questions.

I express a similar complaint in "There's nothing in it for you", arguing that the game doesn't provide the NPCs or the player with reasons to be evil beyond sheer insanity. In particular, the relative abundance of supplies in the Wasteland seems to defeat the feeling of desperation that might make an attractive core for such a personal narrative. Shamus Young had similar problems with Mr. Burke's quest, as he describes in "The Power of the Atom", where he critiques the flimsy writing behind what may be Fallout 3's most affecting visual sequence. For me, the chief reason for evil comes not from any of the writing, but rather from the V.A.T.S. system. In "Power's joy and sorrow" I opine that the system presents killing as an empowering pleasure, and in that way makes a case for war.

The case for selfless helpfulness, in my view is much stronger, but the narrative of the good character ends up "Falling apart at the end". The conclusion of the main quest, in my view, suffers because of a weak antagonist and moral confusion.

Justin Keverne critiques the game's explicit karma system in "A measure of morality". The fact that the karmic result of a particular action is made explicit is at odds with feeling of ignorance mentioned earlier. He also points out that almost everyone thinks of himself as a decent person, and that this slippery moral perspective is absent from the karma math. Malcolm Ryan, in his essay "On Moral Detachment" argues that explicit karma systems eliminate moral force by giving every choice a gameplay consequence. He actually felt more moved by an incidental moment in Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, which he found otherwise forgettable.

As a counterpoint, one can consider D. Riley's discussion of "The Situation at Tenpenny Tower" in which he describes a quest where even the "good" solutions leave a bad taste in your mouth. Shamus Young extensively critiques the logic of this quest, the options available, and the game's moral judgment of your choices in "Tenpenny Tower".

What does Fallout 3 tell us?

One of the persistent complaints about video games is that the lack of authorial control diminishes their artistic merits. Much is wrong with this view, but it has a certain resonance in light of games like Fallout 3 that work by allowing the player to construct a personal narrative. Obviously a game can use particular mechanics in order to reinforce certain behaviors, but this can create as many questions as answers, as Justin Keverne mentions in his short post "Its own reward?".

Nonetheless, some messages can be read into any personal narrative that gets built into the game world. Duncan Fyfe opines in "Escape from Vault 101" that at its core Fallout 3 is about the worthlessness of inaction, and the futility of safety, connecting this to Bethesda's own story. As he says, "It's about not staying in the vault." The open-world context itself can also convey a message. In "Bellum omnia contra omnes" I argue that the wasteland, by depicting the state of nature as close to Hobbes' vision, says certain things about humanity. The game's fictional history connects the desperate struggles of the wasteland with wars that may be coming in our own.


So, I hope you've found some good things through this list, perhaps things you hadn't seen before. I'm certain some good pieces have been written that I'm just not aware of or have lost my links to; please point them out to me in the comments. Also, I'd like your opinion of this idea, this format, etc. Should I do this again, or was it a big fat waste of our time?

Last Update: 4/6/09

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So long, sucker!

I should have turned it off.

It's not like I haven't done it before. I turned Silent Hill: Homecoming off at a point where I thought it should end, though I eventually gave in to the developers' vision. It would hardly have been a sin to treat Prince of Persia the same way. To be honest, though, the moment sneaked up on me. By the time my suspicion that things had gone horribly wrong turned into certainty, I had already gone so far into the game's conclusion that there was nothing left but to let it reach its full, insulting grandeur.

Don't read further unless you've reached the "end" or just don't care about spoilers.

Prince of Persia's ending has three serious issues. The first of these is that it is not an ending, but rather an obvious opening into a sequel. None of the problems have been solved, no real closure has been achieved. I know that video games, like nearly all modern media, love to build on successful efforts with sequels, trilogies, and full-on series. It's a bit irksome, however, to have that so boldly thrown in your face. Games are pretty expensive, and it twists my tail to have a developer ransom my interest in the story for the price of a second game.

A related problem is that the ending nullifies the player's effort to finish the game. The player, along with the Prince and Elika, has struggled for hours to return Ahriman to the prison. By releasing the dark god again, the developers basically strip the worth of that time. The ending they devise denies the player a sense of accomplishment; every fight, every traversal, was just a wasted effort. What's more, the player is forced to participate. Once Elika has been placed on the platform, the player has no choice but to undo all his hard work, even if he doesn't want to do it, or believe that the "Prince" would.

And make no mistake, this ending does not work with this character. It doesn't suit the kind of character he is, for one thing. The game would have been more accurately titled The Princess of Ahura, because it is clearly Elika's story. Were it not for his occasional employment of sword-fighting skills, the Prince would be completely superfluous. He never makes the critical decisions, and Elika clearly doesn't really need him to make her way through the environment. Although he's the focus of the player's experience, there's no escaping the fact that the Prince is not the hero of the story. He's the comic relief. Promoting him to the center of the story in the last moments feels like a misuse of the character.

Even if you accept his newfound central role, the Prince's decision is inexplicable. When Elika asks him why he did it he gives her a look that I assume is supposed to be searing (it's hard to tell given the characters' apparent facial paralysis), but nothing in the game to this point supports such all-consuming infatuation. Again, maybe the developers meant those awful, mask-like faces to convey some kind of emotion throughout the game, but the dialogue itself never amounts to anything more than mild flirtation, in which Elika repeatedly shoots the Prince down. It became utterly obvious about 3/4 of the way through the game that her death was inevitable. The Prince we are introduced to up to and beyond that point struck me as the kind of person who would take the death stoically and chalk it up to just more bad luck.

In addition, the game builds up plenty of antipathy between the Prince and Ahriman. As he runs through the desert you can hear Ahriman whisper that he's done no injury to the Prince, and I guess that's so if you don't count being stabbed, crushed, knocked about the head, choked, slashed, and repeatedly drowned. Moreover, the Prince makes clear during his fights with the Concubine that he knows Ahriman is not to be trusted. He also knows that Elika would not wish him to do this. I simply can't buy that the Prince is infatuated enough, or foolish enough, to follow through with what Ahriman wants.

The story of Prince of Persia is bland and competent, if nowhere near as interestingly presented as Sands of Time or The Two Thrones, but the ending is a mess. It devalues the player's investment in the game and his efforts to complete it. Additionally, it just doesn't fit the character of the Prince. To add injury to insult, the player is forced to work for this ending. He has no alternative but to put an effort into senselessly undoing everything he worked for.

That's not entirely true, though, is it? There is an alternative, and it's one I should have used. I should have turned it off.

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Second verse, same as the first

Although Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time has been widely praised as one of the best games in the last decade, many players and critics justly excoriated the game for its combat segments. The swordfighting in that game took up a great deal of time, felt very repetitive, and also was essentially divorced from the platforming activity that took up most of the game and gave it much of its appeal. For the reboot of the franchise beginning with the recently released Prince of Persia, the developers promised a very different take on combat. This they delivered, but the fighting in Prince of Persia nonetheless suffers from most of the same problems as in Sands of Time, and some new ones as well.

As I've mentioned before, one of the reasons I hold a high opinion of The Two Thrones is that it managed to partially solve the division between combat and platforming that had plagued the previous two games in the series. I had hoped that the PoP team would take the new game further in this direction to seamlessly integrate the two systems. Instead, they went in exactly the opposite direction. In the new Prince of Persia, entering combat feels like entering an entirely different game, one that is utterly divorced from the rest of the world. The changes in the screen are part of this, but there are other aspects, too.

Each battle takes place in a large, open space, meaning that it is nearly impossible to really use the environment in combat. Yes, there are scripted things that can happen involving walls or platform edges, but the variety of acrobatic tricks involving walls and pillars that were possible in the earlier games now seem to be gone. The pacing of the two gameplay modes is also incongruent. The platforming of Prince of Persia is fast and fluid, while the combat is slow and halting. In addition, the platforming doesn't actually rely very heavily on timing. Especially late in the game, however, the fights devolve into very unforgiving sequences of quick-time events, in which it becomes absolutely essential to get the timing precisely right.

So the combat is divided from the rest of the game by its look, its central activities, its pacing, and its attitude towards towards player error. Because of this it actually feels further apart from the platforming than did the combat in Sands of Time.

The combat also ends up being fairly repetitive. Some of this is due to the fact that you literally must repeat battles with each of the main enemies. Each of the game's four bosses must be fought six times, and only in the case of the Warrior do the fights change up significantly. The occasional battles against Ahriman's soldiers hardly provide any variety — the enemies all seem to have essentially the same moveset, and the combat locations differ from each other only in minor ways. Within each fight there is also repetition on account of the different "shields" the enemies can use. Although these have the virtue of pushing the player out of his comfort zone and forcing him to explore the combat tree, each use of a shield forces the fight into a set shield-counter-attack pattern. When the use of a shield is occasional this is not a problem, but as the game goes on your enemies will engage one at every possible opportunity, forcing each fight into a routine. What's worse, some enemies will keep using the same shield over and over, making the activity even more uniform, and stripping the system of its only virtue.

The main new problem for the combat is that it is all wrong for the character. Part of this comes from the pace of combat. The Prince of this game moves fast and talks fast, but when the sword comes out he starts inching around everywhere like a caterpillar. He's practically incapable of closing with his enemies, most of whom move with greater speed and fluidity than he. Seeing this man scamper around the land of the Ahura, you might expect that he would fight in a similar manner, using speed, guile, and the environment to defeat his foes. He's the sort of man you might expect to take on a squad of guards with a dagger and a loaf of bread and somehow trick them all into running each other through. Instead, he fights in a series of one-on-one duels, moving sluggishly around an empty arena with his giant sword.

The weapon itself is also outrageously inappropriate. The man is a thief, after all — he needs a weapon that's light and easy to carry on his acrobatic forays through crumbling tombs. Instead he gets a blade longer than his legs. You couldn't walk around your living room wearing that sword without knocking it against a dozen pieces of furniture and every wall, so it's hard to buy that he can manage wall-runs and navigate ledges with it on. This weapon belongs to the Prince of the previous trilogy, a man obsessed with martial glory, not the tomb raider of the present game.

Prince of Persia has rebooted the franchise with a new storyline, a different look, and significantly altered combat mechanics. Some of these new directions feel like progress, but the combat seems to have taken a step backward, shedding the advances of The Two Thrones in order to revert to the same gameplay division and combat tedium that hurt The Sands of Time, while adding a new wrinkle in that the combat style is now totally unsuited to the Prince himself. All in all, the combat still juts out from the rest of the game like a sore thumb. This brand-new Prince may have a whole new world to explore, but the combat has the same old problems.

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Bellum omnia contra omnes

Much of political philosophy concerns a significant thought experiment called "the state of nature". This hypothetical condition is one in which mankind has never had a government, and it is a popular way to address the question of why a person would ever choose to surrender rights to the State. Stories that involve the breakdown of civilization often include a representation of such a state, and naturally the qualities of this created world will depend on your beliefs about human nature. The wasteland of Fallout 3 represents the state of nature as the war of all men against all men. In so doing, and by connecting the wasteland's state of nature to that between countries, the game argues that the death of governmental and international covenants are fatal to both individuals, and humanity itself.

Spoilers follow.

For many Americans, Washington D.C. is synonymous with government, and by setting its story there, Fallout 3 invites the player to ponder the subject. A significant number of the game's quests involve monuments of beloved presidents, or various of the Smithsonian Institutions. Many of the game's treasure troves and safe places are former military installations. And, of course, the player gets around the ruined city primarily via the public transportation system. The shattered state of these locales mirrors the breakdown of government at large. Although a supposed president drones constantly from many of the radios, there is no evidence of overarching government, and little echo of democracy.

[C]ovenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all. Therefore... if there be no power erected, or not great enough for our security, every man will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art for caution against all other men.

— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

It is force that rules the wastes, even in the remaining pockets of civilization. Towns such as Megaton, Canterbury Crossroads, and Arefu are essentially anarchical, with well-armed sheriffs barely able to contain the mayhem. Tenpenny Tower, Paradise Falls, the Republic of Dave, and even Little Lamplight are run by strongmen. Places that lack an authoritarian leader, like Grayditch and Big Town, are universally imperiled. Each of these towns is an armed camp. Even in Rivet City, where cramped the hallways are endlessly patrolled by well-armed security guards, everyone is packing heat. None of these places have any legal system worth mentioning. There is no law; there is no justice. The only State in the wasteland is the state of nature, aptly matching that described by Hobbes:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in the condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.

For Hobbes, war means a state of perpetual readiness to fight. He does not argue that the state of nature is a state of constant battle, but rather that it is a place where everyone has a weapon already drawn or within easy reach. This is the war taking place in Fallout 3. It is not a clash of ideologies or civilizations, but a universal war between every man and all his fellow men.

In Leviathan, Hobbes asserts that men in the state of nature quarrel for three main reasons: resources, security, and renown. Fallout 3 addresses each of these motivations. The central concern of the main quest is the scarcity of water. Because nearly all the water in the wasteland is irradiated or otherwise contaminated, agriculture is practically impossible. The only apparent source of relatively clean water lies in the small town of Megaton, and its residents don't share. Fresh food in the wastes means the produce of mutated animals such as two-headed cows or giant ants, or other human's bodies. The only alternative is the preservative-laden, imperishable junk food left behind by the previous civilization.

The struggle for security is also evident. Nearly every settlement around the capital has a wall; Rivet City even has a moat. Those who don't have secure settlements struggle to get accepted into them — the efforts of the ghouls to get a place in Tenpenny Tower exemplifies this desire. The character is repeatedly reminded that the Vault is the safest place in the wastes, and of course the wasteland residents are likely to idealize a miniature city with an impenetrable door and walls as thick as the earth itself. But as it turns out, the Vault is also a violent place, ruled by brutish, simplistic authoritarianism.


The game toys with the player's own desire for glory via the Galaxy News Radio station. In addition to hearing your stories on the radio, the karma system also seems to primarily be one based on renown. Different kinds of characters recognize and appreciate you based on what approach you have taken. One can also interpret some of Elder Lyons' decisions as influenced by a desire for a kind of glory or recognition.

So the wasteland resembles Hobbes' state of nature in several crucial respects, and that implies some basic beliefs about humanity. Fallout 3 by depicting the state of nature in this way, argues that people focus on their own survival and satisfaction first, and only rarely care for the needs of others. Those who attempt to do good for others are destroyed by men who are greedy for power and renown. Were that all, Fallout 3 would merely be a depressing commentary on human nature. But the game also tries to draw a line between this brutal land and the world of today.

...in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another...

The desperate resource conflicts of the wasteland reproduce on a small scale exactly the kinds of conflicts that led to its creation. In Fallout 3's fictional history, the collapse of the United Nations in the 2050s opened up an era of resource conflicts between nations that culminated in a war between the United States and China over the rich lands of Alaska. This war in turn led to the U.S. annexation of Canada (something our northern neighbors would surely find most vexing) and eventually, catastrophic nuclear war. Now, the United Nations could never seriously stand in for a hegemon, but written materials found in the game suggest that the collapse of this limited international framework returned the world's countries to their state of nature, which also matches the Hobbesian description.

The well-read people of that time seem to have known how their story would end. You can find a townhouse in the Georgetown area containing a still-functional housekeeping robot. Taking a page from Ray Bradbury, the robot can be ordered to recite a poem, which is "There will come soft rains" by Sara Teasdale. But in Bradbury's story this poem is meant for an adult, while in Fallout 3 it is meant to be heard by a child. Imagine what fear you must live in if you comfort your kids with the idea that at least the world will be no worse off without us.

In Fallout's view, however, Teasdale is wrong. Mankind burned the world when it killed itself, and Spring never awakened. The fictional world of Fallout represents the idea that the endpoint of the state of nature is meaningless death, for nations as for individuals. By opting to go it alone, to abandon what little international government existed, we chose the state of nature. And as in the "Tenpenny Tower" episode, conflicts in the state of nature have no good answer. That quest cannot be completed without eviction or murder; there is no endpoint where nobody dies. There is no happy ending. The same can be said of any state of nature — such a world makes monsters of us all. Given that anthropogenic climate change is predicted to usher in an unprecedented era of global resource conflict, that's something to consider.


Even in the final moment of triumph, the game offers an especially bleak perspective. When the Brotherhood of Steel chooses to dislodge the Enclave from the Jefferson Memorial, they do it not out of any higher motive, but out of a desire to ensure their own safety. And when you manage to purify the wasteland's water, what then? You haven't changed the state of nature. You haven't established the covenant that protects men from each other. Water is now safe to drink, but the people of the wastes will just find something else to fight over. The concluding slideshow promises the same thing that the opening did: war will go on, and war never changes. And what is the world like, in war? Well, it's much like the experience of the game's main character:

In such condition there is... continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

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Falling apart at the end

Having made an extensive complaint about Fallout 3's arguments for evil, I should, in the interest of fairness and balance, discuss its case for goodness. Fallout 3 does a better job, in general, of presenting reasons to be good. The backstory supports the idea of a good character, and the dire situation of most settlements in the wasteland provides the tools to construct a compelling heroic narrative. The game falters, however, in the closing chapters. The final battles of the game don't provide a particularly compelling narrative for the good character, and the design tends to support choices that weaken the ending or make it entirely senseless.

Spoilers follow.

The narrative context of the vault supports a player's choice of a good alignment early on. The main character's father, James, is a doctor, a profession associated with helping others. Although he has his moral lapses — stealing a child's toy, for example — the impression conveyed is that he is a good person, and it's easy to tell yourself a story about how his values were impressed on his child. In addition, the game reinforces the good path here because most of the "evil" choices you can make in the vault amount to little more than just being a prick. They feel petty, cruel, and pointless. While there are a few threads that can be gathered into a narrative of evil, most of the materials are better tuned for a heroic narrative.

The world itself has the same feel. The ruins of the D.C. area serve as a grim warning about the consequences of war, and the hopelessness that suffuses many of the abandoned areas the character enters argues against the feeling of power V.A.T.S. provides. In addition, most of the people you meet seem to need your help badly. In part this is just a result of including quests, but the world design and NPCs do a good job conveying the impression of desperate people barely hanging on in a hostile land. The few pockets of "civilization" are all in such dire straits, and the character can become a powerful force so early on, that constructing a heroic narrative becomes almost a seamless activity. In addition, some quests are one-sided enough that they simply won't fit in an evil narrative at all.

The story of the good character starts to wobble late in the main quest, however. The central idea of this quest, a giant purifier that will cleanse all the water in the D.C. area of radioactivity, provides a compelling interest, but the antagonist in this section feels like a limp formality. The Enclave enters with completely inexplicable timing, and the behavior of its officers doesn't agree with any goal other than that of a writer who just wants you not to like them. If the Enclave and its brutality had been demonstrated throughout the game world, the case would be more compelling, but this just doesn't happen. The chief problem with the Enclave as antagonists is that they never appear in the open world except as a few harmless wandering robots, until the moment when you are supposed to already be at war with them. This constraint leads the writers to make them act with irrational brutality. James' behavior is also difficult to justify, because his action is so extreme, and the choice he makes to defend the project against the Enclave also renders it useless to his allies.

And why are we to believe that the Enclave is so bad that dying to stop them is worthwhile? The final acts of the game focus on dislodging the Enclave from the Jefferson Memorial so that they cannot start the purifier, but for a truly selfless character it should not matter who starts the machine, so long as it does start. Elements of the game world begin emphasizing the importance of water purification almost as soon as the main character exits the vault. The credit for such a task matters, but does it matter enough to kill dozens of people over it? Why not let the Enclave start the purifier?

The answer to this, of course, is that the Enclave's computerized leader, President Eden, wants to kill most of the people in the wasteland, leaving alive only the people of the Enclave and a few vault survivors. It goes almost without saying that in light of the very low population of the area this idea is hard to credit. A larger problem is that the Enclave officer in charge of the Memorial is one who disagrees with this plan, so much so that the computer asks the main character to carry the plan out for him. Moreover, the game pushes the character towards destroying Eden; dialogue options leading to the destruction of the computer constitute all of the top choices near the end of the conversation with Eden. And once the computer is destroyed, the Enclave seems like less of a threat than ever. The final assault feels less like heroism and more like murder.

The very end of the game presents additional problems. It turns out that the radioactive blast your father used in an attempt to stop the Enclave from taking over the Memorial has still contaminated the control room. Someone must go into the deadly radiation in order to start the purifier. The good character is clearly supposed to sacrifice himself in order to get the project started. However, the good character is also almost certain to have the follower Fawkes, a giant mutant immune to radiation, with him. The reason for this is that you cannot keep Fawkes from following you unless you act like a complete ass. The writers do an infuriatingly bad job of providing reasons why Fawkes cannot save the day. In short, the only way not to feel like a sucker at the end of the game is to feel like a jerk by dismissing Fawkes or sending Sentinel Lyons in instead. The good character's narrative ends with him killing a bunch of people so that he can do something they would have done anyway, and dying needlessly because some giant mutant thinks it's his destiny.

Fallout 3 provides plenty of materials for the player trying to create a heroic story. The family background of the main character supports an ethos geared towards helping others, and the world provides a flock of characters who desperately need help the character can provide. Where this story falls apart is in trying to create a dramatic final confrontation. The effort to rapidly build up the Enclave as an enemy leads the writers to have them behave in odd ways. Ultimately they're never convincing enough as antagonists to really justify the urgency or brutality of the final assault. Then, the final sacrifice is rendered insultingly needless by the presence of Fawkes. The overall experience of Fallout 3 supports a heroic story, but the main character is denied an epic battle for justice. Instead, he gets a series of senseless deaths, culminating with his own.

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