Whenever I’ve need to get away from the dark melancholy of a world overrun by a deadly viral pandemic I’ve been retreating to a virtual world overturned by a stark nuclear winter.
My Playstation Plus subscription came coupled with a collection of PS4 games that while they don’t showcase the capabilities of my new top-of-the-line, next-gen gaming system are games I never got around to playing much or at all.
Fallout 4 was on both lists, the list of games I hadn’t played much of and the list of games that came along free with the annual subscription I bought from Sony.
And when I logged in to check my trophies and gaming profile I was a little surprised to see that not only hadn’t I earned many of the achievement that go along with this RPG but also that my time-in-game had passed 30 hours over the last couple weeks. Those two data points didn’t exactly jibe.
Fallout 4 is a role playing game (for those unfamiliar with the franchise.) This means that you start off as a character in the game where character is all that really matters. “Character” doesn’t necessarily mean upstanding character, but rather that the point of the game is to develop and enhance the characteristics of your in-game character to advance through a story and accomplish various tasks and goals.
The main big-picture goal is that of finding you abducted son, who was stolen away under shady circumstances while you were locked in a hibernation chamber waiting out two hundred years of post-nuclear fallout.
The small-picture tasks are generally killing undead radiation creatures while you hunt the wasteland for bigger guns and loot to satiate your endless ammunition needs while you make sketchy friendships with settlers by building them crappy shacks to live in and then filling it with mouldering furniture.
Yes, I’ve actually spent more than 30 hours of my life doing this… during a pandemic. Uplifting, huh?
The trickiest part of the new console though is finding games that balance playability and fun on one side with watcher-enjoyment on the other. The PS5 is hooked up to our main television in a common space where schedules usually converge on three people looking to make use of that screen at the same time.
In other words, if I want to play a game (even though it’s the television I bought — welcome to fatherhood!) I get less pushback if its a game that’s entertaining to watch as a spectator.
I’m not one hundred percent sure Fallout 4 is that game but as I progress deeper and deeper I’m finding myself reading up on the lore and in-game plot threads so that I can narrate the backstory to what’s happening to anyone else in the room who finds themselves stuck watching me V.A.T.S. a raider with my nuclear powered shotgun for the two-thousandth time.
Getting trenched in on an RPG is the point of an RPG. Finding immersion in the story, and seeking to drive the plot forward through the progressive adversity of increasingly more difficult is what game makers aim for, I think. I enjoy RPGs because throughout my life, every couple of years, I find myself entrenched in one and loving the time I invest in it.
Some that stand out in my memory are Ultima VII, Final Fantasy VII & IX, Chrono Cross, Skyrim & Breath of the Wild. I’m getting to a point where I could easily see myself adding Fallout 4 to that list… even as it brings a different level of twisted gloom to an already gloomy era.