So I’m starting something new, which, if there’s some good feedback, will hopefully become a series here on Pixel Judge. The style I’m aiming for here is a little strange. I’m aiming for a review of a game that does not focus on how pretty it looks or how smooth it runs, instead, looking at the story/stories within the game, trying to bring to light some meaning from it - something that we can learn from the game as it unfolds us as both individuals and as a culture. It goes without saying that these could end up being filled with spoilers, so if you haven’t managed to play the game that gets covered - and care about avoiding spoilers - may want to give this one a miss.

What I write will be what I see within the game’s experience - what I have learnt about myself, and what speaks to me about the world we live in. It’s subjective, and possibly will give some hint about the man behind the screen-name. I’m discussing these games as an art form, and since so much of how we interpret art is what we bring to the experience, everyone will see things differently. If what I say doesn’t match up with what you see in the games I write about, go ahead and say so - I’m aiming for discussion here. So without further ado, the game I’ve chosen for this trial run is Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout takes place in an alternate, technologically advanced, US, where culturally society never reached too far past the sensibilities of the 50’s. The Cold War never ended, and in the second half of the 21st century both sides launched enough nuclear warheads to destroy civilisation within two hours. Humanity (at least in the US) survived by sheltering in Vaults, and emerged to build a new society. Life is harsh and rugged and there aren’t many people that do more than barely scrape by. The world is filled with advanced technology that very few people still understand, and there are a lot of things and people that would kill you as willingly as they’d look at you. And into this world the player is thrust, playing the role of a courier who has been ambushed while on a delivery.

New Vegas, the fourth official major game in the series, opens with a few lines from your ambusher about the game being rigged, and you getting shot. Later, you wake up having been rescued by the people from the nearby town of Goodsprings, and create your character. After a short tutorial, the townsfolk give you some information about the men who tried to murder you, and ask for a helping hand in dealing with a criminal group that has been terrorising the town. You deal with the bandits one way or another, and then move on to the next town on your target’s journey. This leads through a string of events that follow a pattern of ‘you enter a town, and ask where the people you’re looking for went. You’re told that the town has problems of its own, and that they’ll help you if you help them.’

New Vegas offers you the chance to build any character you want to, and almost fully explore how that character would react in a number of different situations. The choices you make in this early section have a direct and immediate effect on the people around you; Goodsprings either becomes a ghost town or a town at peace; Primm has protection and law again, and different goods for sale depending on how that quest is completed. And you start to develop a reputation you’ll cultivate throughout the game. This section also introduces many of the big players in the Mojave, particularly the biggest two - the NCR and Caesar's Legion, allowing you to learn more about those that become a major part of the later portions of the game, and determine how they fit into your character’s worldview. Are you going to be a kind and generous person that puts others first, genuinely seeking to improve people’s lives, or will you be a cold-hearted bastard that’s only out for himself? Perhaps you’ll end up as something in between. By the time you make it to Vegas, you’ve probably got a good grasp on your character.

One of the more standout sections is the quest you are given in order to get the information you need from the town of Novac. In short, you’re asked to clear a number of feral ghouls (humans who were unalterably changed by radiation, and subsequently became mindless monsters) from a factory complex that the locals used as a scrap mine for trading. Upon entering, you also find the monsters known as Nightkin (super mutants that specialise in stealth), who are completely hostile to the ghouls, as well as a number of ghouls who engage your services as helpers, asking you to kill or drive off the nightkin, and assist them in gathering the necessary parts for the rockets they are preparing (their goal is to make it to the moon). Along the way there are a number of different options for completing the quest - sabotage the rocket engines, mess with the flight path to cause a collision, assist the ghouls to reach their destination, or simply gun them all down when you see them - each affected by different skills, and each reflective of the different ways you can build your character’s personality. Would you go out of your way to improve the lives of the Ghouls as well as the people of Novac, or would you simply revel in the ability to misdirect and sabotage their hopes and dreams in an effort to achieve your own goals faster?

The four major quest lines for the latter half of the game are exclusionary, and each is tied to a specific faction of the wasteland: the New California Republic, a democratic faction that bases their values after Old World America, and seek to bring those ideals to the rest of post-nuclear America; Caesar’s Legion, a faction of slavers and warmongers that base their structure and ideals on Ancient Rome, who seek conquest and Empire the same way their namesake did; Mr House, the ruler of New Vegas, an Old World genius that extended his life through the use of technology, and seeks to rebuild the technological powerhouse America once was; and the Anarchist route, where you reject the other three and push for a completely independent Mojave Wasteland. The tasks you undertake push the agendas of the faction you have sided with, bringing them closer to the final confrontation where the future of Vegas is decided. Here the game widens in scope, there isn’t so much of an immediate payoff for the things you’re doing, but the actions will serve to make the final confrontation easier for your faction, and whoever they aren’t directly opposed to.

I said before that the choices you make have an effect on the world around you, and your general stance with people is decided not by how good or evil you are on a moral level, but by how your actions have affected the factions that they pay allegiance to; soldiers and towns of the NCR will like you if you help the NCR, while members of the Legion will despise you for it; or the people who live in Freeside will appreciate it if you help to make their life better, but dislike thefts and random violence within their homes. The end result of this is that the most evil bastard that ever walked the earth can still be adored by many as long as what they do is of benefit to them, or the living embodiment of the saints themselves can be hated because their actions did not serve a particular group.

I’ve always held that art is defined by its ability to make us evaluate ourselves, to stir feelings that cause us to challenge what we hold dear - what we would sacrifice when push came to shove. And, for me at least, New Vegas hits all the right points - would I sacrifice people’s freedom for the sake of order, or would I give over an entire area to an iron-fisted (but urbane and civilised) dictator in order to regain the technical knowledge of the past? Would I consider my needs above the needs of others, and simply rob those with practically nothing to resupply ammunition and medical supplies? Would I doom an entire people group to advance my goals and the goals of my employers? Would I be willing to kill in order to save my own life, or the life of another, even if it meant killing an innocent in the process? These are questions that New Vegas - and games in general - allow us to ask, and if we think about them enough, to answer in a way that can either change or reinforce how we think about ourselves. The search for meaning in New Vegas is the search for a greater understanding of who we are as individuals in the face of global disaster, and personal turmoil without physically suffering through those things, and I can honestly say that the ideals I hold dear - ideals like personal liberty, and the right of others to live their own lives - I hold even dearer having considered their alternatives in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Mojave Desert.