Fucking Fallout

Aside from the shit idea that was Ears Day, blogging has been a bit light lately.  Which means you (yes YOU) have been spared my trite observations, rubbish jokes and creative spelling.  There’s only one reason for this.  And it’s a video game:  Fallout 3.

When it comes to videogames, I end up buying them, playing loads and loads for a day or two, getting stuck and then putting it back on the shelf.  Then a bit down the line, usually just after payday, I’ll feel the need for something new and end up trading the old game in for pennies and replacing it with the hot new game.  And so the cycle continues.

Fallout almost, er, fell into this, but didn’t because of its sheer addictiveness.  It’s set in a post-nuclear-war America, where you wander round the apocalyptical landscape and try to survive against an army of mutants, monsters and mingers.  It’s all set up in such an open-ended way that you can do a task however you like:  Someone will give you a gun if you return their child, and you can’t be bothered?  Lie to them, tell them their child is dead.  Or kill them and steal the key.  Pickpocket them.  Or actually go get the child.  Play it how you like.  Clearly I rarely go through with the latter option, going for the easy option.

Somehow, in a little over two weeks, I’ve played 43 hours of this game.  Of the 30,000 days I might live, that’s two of them.  It only really becomes a problem when I’m asked how I spent my Saturday night:  I released some slaves, tunnelled through the wastes of a metro system and rescued a team of raiders from the roof of an abandoned hotel.  Or I sat on the floor and exercised my thumbs. Alone.

In typical fashion, there’s five or so add-ons for Fallout available for a few quid (and a lot more hours) each.  Don’t do it.  Don’t get suckered into spunking your life away on what is essentially a pretend life.  A pretend life that’s so much more exciting than your own.

ALSO this week, I went to Aldi and had a £4 bottle of wine scan through at £16 and bought it so I wouldn’t look like a pikey.