«Fallout 3»

I've been playing Fallout 3. The game takes place in and around the Washington DC area in a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2277, 200 years after the Great War. Basically everything is a nuclear wasteland. As the story goes, tensions built up between countries as oil reserves and other natural resources were used up. Eventually it came to a head in 2077 and a nuclear war sparked between the US and China. It only lasted a few hours, but it was enough to destroy civilization.

There were some underground vaults built that could sustain some humans in the event of a nuclear holocaust, although not nearly enough for everyone. Basically this is how humanity survived. Some vaults opened as early as 10 years after the Great War. As I said, the game takes place 200 years after. My character lived in vault 101, and this vault was not suppose to re-open: ever. Well, my character's father escaped so I had to go out looking for him.

Now, I'm not sure what the world would look like 200 years after a nuclear holocaust. But it appears almost none of the flora has returned yet, and although you can generally walk around without being exposed to radiation, all the water and food is still contaminated. Of course, it wouldn't be a game without horribly mutated, hostile creatures running about. And zombies (well ok, they're called feral ghouls, not zombies. They're humans that were exposed to ungodly amounts of radiation and didn't die).

I'm playing as an evil character. Why? Because it's fun, why else? The two things I'm most proud of so far are detonating a left-over nuke, crazy people built a town around it. I don't think anyone will make that mistake again. The second thing is selling a child into slavery. Usually in games children are strangely absent, because being able to kill children would raise the age rating on the game. It's nice to see children sometimes, adds to the realism (and the deliciously evil fun).