Natural Born Killer

By Alexander Gambotto-Burke Published 11 August, 2009

Part 1: An experiment in genocide, using Fallout 3.

Gob hits me. Not literally, of course - he's much too kindhearted for that. But as he runs away, clutching his bleeding head and begging for mercy, I am genuinely struck by a deep, genuine remorse. Here's a Ghoul - not an undead monster in the traditional sense, but one of the residents of the Capital Wasteland whose appearance was deeply disfigured by radiation - who has spent his long, painful life beleaguered by intolerance and various physical ailments. He spends his days mixing drinks at a sleazy bar in Megaton, constantly harassed and mocked for his condition by his boss, Colin Moriarty. And now I've strolled in, dismembered all his friends and coworkers, and am chasing him through the dingy building while he tries - in vain, naturlich - to hide. Gob won't be the last person I mercilessly slaughter in Megaton this day, but his death will stay with me the longest.

Which may seem surprising, as I've already ploughed through old ladies, overworked doctors, and starving beggars with my trusty sledgehammer. (Well, it became my trusty sledgehammer after I clubbed one of Megaton's sledgehammer-wielding citizens to death with a baseball bat.) I'm on a mission - not to praise Jesus or ensure that every child in Namibia has a netbook, but to kill every single living vaguely human-like character in Fallout 3. Kids are off the menu because a) Fallout 3 doesn't let you kill them, and b) I couldn't do it, anyway. But everyone else, no matter how friendly, helpful, or beneficial to my completion of the game, must be put into the ground.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 2

I'm doing this because I want to test the simu-limits of Bethesda's most accomplished softwork. Oblivion left me cold, but I adored Fallout 3 on release, and will quite happily place it on a pedestal next to Interplay's first two instalments in the series. The first time I ran through it, though, I, like most other people, played a hero. I did get to watch Megaton explode, but only because I'd quicksaved just beforehand, and could easily go back and Do The Right Thing. Which, of course, I promptly did. (Videogames 1, Real Life 0.)

The deliciousness of a great open-worlder is not so much in going back and doing it all again differently - because, really, who has the time? - but in knowing that you could, if you wanted. If the game doesn't trigger that sensation at every step, it's a waste of time and money. Thankfully, Fallout 3, like its canonical predecessors, delivered - I was always acutely aware of at least a dozen little ghosts running around my pure-hearted self, doing the whole thing with a more avaricious, hedonistic, or just downright evil bent. Blow up Megaton, turn in the android, request "protection money": I saw it all happen in my mind's eye. A bit like Sliding Doors, but with Super Mutants and exploding craniums.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 3

But this is something else entirely. This isn't even mass-murder. This ain't rock 'n' roll. This is genocide.

Before we go on, I should clarify that my mission has another, slightly more snooty, objective: anti-videogames pundits love to describe games like this as "mass-killing simulators", and whilst I'm reasonably confident that the vast majority of Fallout 3's buyers (and rascally downloaders) wouldn't dream of playing it that way, I want to know if there's any merit to the practice. Is it any fun? Will I feel like I've been missing out on something? Or perhaps Dale Dye's and Eliot Spitzer's doomiest predictions might come to pass: will I end up chasing my wife around the house with the business end of an umbrella? Time will tell.

So where were we? Yes, Megaton. Well, as you now know even if you haven't played the game, it's entirely possible to detonate the unexploded warhead sitting at the centre of the Wasteland's most welcoming municipality. But that's boring: it's been written about too many times, and while it was a brave step on Bethesda's part in terms of player agency, it doesn't require that much initiative to pull it off. And what's more, to go through with the quest would be to revoke my status as an equal-opportunity sociopath: as Moriarty's pub explodes into claret-coloured pandemonium, the sinister Mr. Burke sits in the corner, having conspired with me about levelling the town. He's smug: he thinks that because we are both evil, I will let him live. Not so, Mr. Burke: I shoot him twice in the chest with the now-limbless Billy Creel's Scoped .44 Magnum, and then knock his head clean off with a lead pipe I happen to be carrying (I am an RPG collectophile). Hilariously, this act gives me a slight whiff of positive karma: one suspects Bethesda feels two wrongs do ultimately make a right.

As I step outside, the chaos continues. Some of Megaton's remaining citizens have positioned themselves at various vantage points throughout the area, and are now attempting to ferry me off to the Malebolge. I pick off the most dangerous, sniper rifle-wielding one long-distance, and take a moment to watch one of his eyeballs roll off a ledge onto the dirt below. After that, I sprint along Megaton's raised walkway, frantically disassembling anyone with the audacity to aim a fork at me.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 1

It's gruelling work, actually, especially since health-giving Stimpaks are hard to come by early on in the game. Handily, the remaining denizens - all members of the Church of Atom, who were apparently oblivious to the horrors unfolding outside - are asleep, so it's just a matter of stabbing them to death before they have a chance to crawl out of beds and cry for sweet mercy. Finally, I notice a grazing Brahmin cow just outside what was Doc Church's surgery about 20 minutes ago. Following several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate its unyielding hide with a combat knife, I give up and obliterate its two heads with a Bottlecap Mine.

Standing in the mess of internal organs, severed forearms, and discarded firearms, several strange things occur to me: first and foremost, this play-style is so completely alien to everything I understand about open-ended gameplay that I will have to radically rework how I approach the game. Collecting, for instance, is out: it slows me down, and, well, who's going to buy all my junk? They're all dead. This, I must say, is oddly liberating: I can forget about collecting bottlecaps (Fallout's currency), because if I really want something from a shop, I can just set the vendor on fire and steal what I need.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 4

The second thing I realise, perhaps a little too late, is that I can no longer rely on anyone. No doctors, no ammo-salesmen, no henchmen - no one. This usually isn't much of a problem, but now that I'm a ruthless killer, I've found I need help more than ever. The utterly insane firefights that result from walking into a well-populated town and beheading the nearest bystander are a serious drain on my health supplies, and I've found that, unlike in my first playthrough, I've been needing to chug down Fallout's wide selection of performance-enhancing substances just to survive. Which brings its own issues: I'm now addicted to three separate drugs (Med-X, Jet, and Buffout), and without a physician around to cure me of my dependency, I wonder whether it's actually going to be possible to achieve my objective. (I think this is how Bobby Gillespie feels every day.)

Last of all, I must let my steely facade slip for a moment and confess: this is horrible. Really, really horrible. If you think the detail with which I have described my deeds above is some kind of indication of the relish I felt when committing them, you're mistaken. It's just that the depth of the simulation lends itself to such verbosity. And, in fact, I very nearly grimaced with every kill. (I say "nearly" because I've just finished re-watching The Sopranos in its entirety, so witnessing gore has become like sneezing.) This is not like mowing down zombie space marines, or even zombie strippers: Bethesda spent what was clearly an enormous amount of time injecting as much pathos and tragedy into the Capital Wasteland as possible, and inflicting further cruelty on these beaten-down, hard-bitten little computer people feels like a real-life moral transgression.

Is it fun, though? I'll have to get back to you on that. It's certainly creative. I'm ignoring every scripted path the game offers - after all, whenever a quest is thrust upon me, I shoot the messenger's arms off - and that's not as simple as you might think. I'm burning every bridge with Fallout 3's story designers that I come across, and it takes quite a lot of skill and forethought to make sure those bridges burn just right.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 5

Speaking of bridges, I should tell you about Arefu, because it illustrates what I'm talking about. I'm already on my way to the most luxurious destination in the Wasteland, Tenpenny Tower, but on the way, I take a little detour. The location of this tiny hamlet - sitting atop a dilapidated, cloven bridge that once led straight into DC - was given to me by Lucy West, who is now an amorphous mass of bloody flesh, and will need to be mopped off the floor if Moriarty's dive is ever going to pass another OHS inspection. Arefu has a population of four, and that number looks set to dwindle thanks to the recent arrival of a bunch of nasty Edward Cullens. The second I arrive, Evan King, the village guardsman, requests my help in protecting the area. I agree, he thanks me, and I shoot him in the eye.

Arefu's inhabitants aren't as approachable as Megatonians, but they're certainly more intelligent. After hearing the commotion outside, they all lock their doors. Unfortunately, I spent too much time back in the Vault trying to kill Liam Neeson to bother learning how to lockpick. I try banging on the doors with a lead pipe - "Free hugs!" - but they just tell me to go away. One woman does eventually slip out with a hunting rifle to try her luck, but in the end, I have to leave Arefu not-entirely-destroyed.

'Natural Born Killer' Screenshot 6

I'm not going to let it get to me, though. As I trudge through the grey mud on my way to Tenpenny Tower, the sun rises, and I begin to plan. The Tower's residents - a sizeable group of pureblood humans who've sequestered themselves from the rest of the world so as to live in pre-war luxury - like to think they're safe from the horrors of the Capital Wasteland. By the pricking of my thumbs...

Natural Born Killer will return soon.

Picture of Alexander.

About Alexander Gambotto-Burke

Read more articles from Alexander by visiting the Alexander Gambotto-Burke archive page.

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Comments (76) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • AphoticCosmos #1 3 years ago

    Quality article, I've always wondered what it'd be like to be Lord Douche of the Wasteland, but I can't stomach being evil.

  • coastal #2 3 years ago

    bit grim that leading pic isnt it?

  • Byzanite #3 3 years ago

    Haha Coastal, I was going to say the same thing: Isnt it this that makes Fallout an 18..? :) Eurogamer readers must all be over 18 then :p

  • DDevil #4 3 years ago

    Funnily enough I was going to play through next as the biggest twat possible. I'm not going to kill everyone, but I too want to make them suffer :)

  • flaming.carrot #5 3 years ago

    Great article!

  • Dizzy #6 3 years ago

    Brilliant! Good work, looking forward to the next installment.

  • Red-Moose #7 3 years ago

    Great article!

  • guernican #8 3 years ago

    Hmmmm.

    I get the "play KOTOR evil" article. I get the "Fool in Morrowind" one on RPS. I'm not sure I get this. If the second article differs substantially from the first, I guess I'll be proved wrong.

  • kangarootoo #9 3 years ago

    Great closing line.

  • busboy33 #10 3 years ago

    I share your pain. I played essentially good, but at one point I tried to steal some guns from the Megaton Armory, not realizing that there was a guard robot in there. I left immediately, but the townsfolk were officially up in arms at that point. I retreated, tried to let them cool off . . . but they chased me into my house and wouldn't let up. They drove me to the edge of death . . . and I snapped. It was officially On like Donkey Kong.
    45 minutes later, Megaton was in ruins (including that damn robot outside). While it was extremely cathartic to let go on Moira and her bodyguard and all the other people that pissed me off, I did feel like a complete tool before I re-loaded my last save.

  • ps3owner #11 3 years ago

    did the same in FO1 and FO2 and of course FO3 after I had finished them. it certainly feels worse than playing a FPS. I don't have a problem mowing down and knifing everything in sight in COD... in FO I do regret it usually. it's easier if you don't talk to anyone. just shoot straight away and ask questions later ;)

    good article.

    EDIT: typo
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 09:19

  • ZuluHero #12 3 years ago

    @guernican

    What’s not to get? There is an aspect of the game that lets you play as an evil chara, what’s being tested here is just how evil you can be. This isn't the usual follow the designers' scripted evil path fare - this is taking it to the extreme to not only test the game's limits, but to test the mental impact on the player.

    I don't think I could ever play fallout 3 in this manner. After spending so long playing it, I've built up too many relationships with the characters to turn serial killer on them. In many cases, it would be like killing someone i know in real life.

    I know games are about escapism, but in open world (and very in-depth) games like fallout, it’s hard to just turn the game on and instantly let go of any empathy or morality.

    Great article - more like this please!
    Edited by 3 at 12/08/09 @ 09:24

  • anth2010 #13 3 years ago

    fall out is more about the little details, played it through as a saint and a sinner the most moving thing is the house in minefield with the dead skeletons in bed holding each other as they died even as a bad guy i was stopped in my tracks but then the devil is in the detail...

  • thegamesthething #14 3 years ago

    Alexander Gambotto-Burke - crazy name, crazy guy :)

  • Skurmedel #15 3 years ago

    Hahhaa... Nice article. I executed that whole bar once too. I didn't mean for Gob to die, I wanted him to survive, but yeah... collateral damage. Loaded my last save though.

    I almost let the Ghouls loose in Tenpenny though.

  • Dop #16 3 years ago

    Brilliant! I've often wondered how far you'd get in a game like this if you just went on a complete rampage.
    Looking forward to the next instalment.

    I'm almost hoping that evil slime-rag Daily Mail gets hold of this, just to watch the explosions of outrage!

  • _Price_ #17 3 years ago

    Not Gob; anyone but Gob....

    Oh crap! Dogmeat!

  • Indy #18 3 years ago

    Great read! As amusing as the Bastard of the Old Republic series!

  • TheTingler #19 3 years ago

    Yeah, I might just cry when he has to kill Dogmeat.

  • guernican #20 3 years ago

    @ZuluHero

    I guess my point was that this isn't testing how evil you can be. It's testing how many people you can kill, which isn't necessarily the same thing. It's all very well to turn the android over to the nasty Commonwealth guy, but the moral choice you make it more or less irrelevant if you then go on to kill the android, the Commonwealth guy, and the entire population of Rivet City.

    Or maybe I'm just being overly picky.

  • mikeck #21 3 years ago


    I share your pain. I played essentially good, but at one point I tried to steal some guns from the Megaton Armory, not realizing that there was a guard robot in there. I left immediately, but the townsfolk were officially up in arms at that point. I retreated, tried to let them cool off . . . but they chased me into my house and wouldn't let up. They drove me to the edge of death . . . and I snapped. It was officially On like Donkey Kong.
    45 minutes later, Megaton was in ruins (including that damn robot outside). While it was extremely cathartic to let go on Moira and her bodyguard and all the other people that pissed me off, I did feel like a complete tool before I re-loaded my last save.

    Haha, pretty much the same happened to me, snuck into the armoury, had a manic pissed off robor after me, tried to escape to my house in Megaton, but five townsfolk joined in the fight too...cut to later and inside my little abode in Megaton was a detroyed robot, two piles of ash (thanks alien blaster) and three dead bodies...they stayed there for weeks in fact, so instead of having a nice theme bought from moira I had my own custom made one, bodies and death for decoration...My karma only took a slight dip too, and I'm still practically virtuous at very good level :)
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 09:57

  • Ranger101 #22 3 years ago

    Hahaha awesome - Suck this Jack Thompson - HAVE YOU SEEN THE MONSTERS YOU HAVE CREATED?!

  • Hantheman #23 3 years ago

    I like the Bowie reference.

  • schnide #24 3 years ago

    Fantastic writing, some of the best I've seen on here. Not only is the style good but I did this exact same thing last week in Fallout, killing everyone in Megaton having previously been on the highest karma rating at level 30.

    And out of everyone, Gob was by far the hardest to do that I physically winced when I did to my complete surprise. I think the poiint to be drawn from this is that games, as long as they're setup within certain boundaries, don't change the person you are but allow you to express it.

  • Darren #25 3 years ago

    I completed the Xbox 360 version of the game then went back to a save game just prior to that and did some more quests. However I ended being good. I've now completed the PC version, all the DLC and intend to finish as many of the quests as I can. Try as I might I just cannot senselessly commit acts of violence so I'm again a good character.

    I know it's only a game but the thought of mindless killing with no purpose just makes me feel uncomfortable, although that's not to say that I've never earned any bad karma. All of the quests have multiple outcomes and some feel like you're doing the right thing only to have you earn bad karma. The great thing about playing it through a second time is that I have a chance to right those wrongs; I find it very rewarding. :)

  • jonbwfc #26 3 years ago

    I actually find this a bit depressing. You've got an open world game with, in essence, a flexible 'working' world in which you can perform any number of actions and tasks. You can build relationships at various levels with multiple groups, play them off against each other, follow several branching storylines... all sorts of things basically. And what do Eurogamer think would be the most 'fun'? Kill everything. Slaughter the entire population of the game. Just basically 'murder' as many virtual people as you can.

    Tell you what EG, next time you write one of those articles berating the likes of Keith Vaz and complaining that gamers are not the bloodthirsty lunatics the Daily Fail says we are, maybe you might hope that the other side can't remember the URL to this.

    Jon

  • Darren #27 3 years ago

    P.S. One thing that did bother me on the second playthrough was the Tranquillity Lane quest. First time on the 360 I did everything I was asked albeit reluctantly (because I felt I didn't have a choice). The second time on the PC I solved the failsafe mechanism but was disappointed to discover it resulted in the same outcome i.e. everyone else but the antagonist, me and my father died. Yet I got good karma! Is there actually a way to complete that quest and have everyone survive?

  • Notez #28 3 years ago

    You start this story a bit late and forget some of the failings of the game. How many "important quest characters" have you managed to kill? That's right. Oblivion all over again.

    Something like this can only be done in Fallout 1 & 2.
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 10:11

  • jonthepymm #29 3 years ago

    @Jon: You did read page 3 didn't you?

  • PearOfAnguish #30 3 years ago

    And what do Eurogamer think would be the most 'fun'? Kill everything. Slaughter the entire population of the game. Just basically 'murder' as many virtual people as you can.

    Think you've missed the point, chap, he's not trying to sate his blood lust by virtually slaughtering innocents, he's seeing how the game changes if you play outside the normal rules.

  • ps3owner #31 3 years ago

    also, for some reason I get bored after about a 100 or so killed ghouls and what not. whereas with COD or any other (good) FPS I can continue going on the rampage for hours... my wife doesn't get it. I can't explain it either. It's just fun?!

  • Yossarian #32 3 years ago

    Fallout 3 is a terrible, terrible game to do any sort of "experiment" in, firstly because it's irredeemably shallow, secondly because almost no decisions in the game have meaningful consequences.

  • Setaro #33 3 years ago

    I played Fallout 3 like a Saint, because I'm just a nice guy.

    However, when it came to Tenpenny Tower, I gladly let the ghouls in to rape and pilliage everyone in there. The bigots didn't deserve any less. And the few that weren't complete racists (that old man with the rifle who liked Ghouls springs to mind) shouldn't be living there surrounded by the others if he had any decency.

    You should have seen the hit my karma level took.

  • ZuluHero #34 3 years ago

    @Darren

    You got good karma because by doing everything that was asked of you the guy gets his sadistic fun and lets you and your father go, but everyone doesn't actually die (only removing the fail safes can actually kill the people). They can die in numerous ways times and still not really die. The guy even tells you thats he's been doing this for years for his own entertainment.

    When you leave, If you 'killed' the people by following his instruction, you will see everyone still sitting in their pods with the simulation still running.

    But if you disable the failsafe and initiate the chinese invasion program, then when you leave evry one will be lying dead in their pods.

    What you can't actually do (and i guess what you were hoping) is free them. It confused me at first too, because it felt like i was getting karma for 'killing' people.
    Edited by 2 at 12/08/09 @ 10:41

  • kinky_mong #35 3 years ago

    We get it Yossarian, you don't like Fallout 3 for some reason. Now can you stop polluting every comments section that's even vaguely related to Fallout with your (extremely backward IMO) opinion and save your energies for circle-jerking over Batman please.

  • kendoji #36 3 years ago

    Fun stuff. My character started out as an opportunistic thief, who only slaughtered innocents when it was convenient. I've increasingly become more evil, though, and now kill NPCs quite randomly. Often in their sleep. It's sort of enjoyable.

    /whistles
    /taps feet

  • spekkeh #37 3 years ago

    One of the most enjoyable reads on a game site ever. Please continue in this vain. I'd like more psychological and scientific meta-outlooks on games, not reviews of graphics and other uninteresting blabber like that.

    By the way, I actually did massacre Tenpenny Tower, even though I played the good guy. The old man was an accident, but when I saw my karma increase, it got the better of me.

  • Skurmedel #38 3 years ago

    I killed the old fart at Tenpenny, I'm a member of that Vigilante group, whatever their name is. So I got some kudos for it.

    Did I get -1 for saying that I killed Tenpenny himself?
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 11:45

  • Ranger101 #39 3 years ago

    I think there's a few people here who have skipped through the text and missed the point completely about the article.

    It really is a fascinating look into behaviour with these next-gen Sandboxes that allow you to do anything... It's like staring at that Purple elephant in the middle of the room as its slowly grown bigger and bigger with the tech and coding.

  • Setaro #40 3 years ago

    Well there was Tenpenny himself, who was an absolute cunt, so you get good karma for shooting his head off.

    There's 3 or 4 people inside the tower though who aren't bad people per se, which is why you take such a massive karma hit for letting the ghouls in to slaughter them. I only felt bad about the old man with the rifle who tells you stories about his adventures with his ghoul friend. I thought he would leave when the ghouls arrived but he fought them and got molested by the Glowing Ones.

  • Les #41 3 years ago

    Played as the good guy as well. It's the play style the game rewards best. E.g. in the old GTA's I would often run over pedestrians because avoiding them would be too much of a hassle and the downside was negligible. In F3 I once touched a radio that wasn't mine and had to kill the owner, after which all his friends (in this case the vampires) came after me as well.

    Personally, I thought his reaction was a bit exaggerated and at least an "I'm sorry"-option would be in place... ;)

  • Stompy #42 3 years ago

    Some with a utilitarian moral philosophy would say, such as Singer, that you are already doing obvious moral harm in your normal life by abusing the privileges of your arbitrary birth to a rich Western country and not spreading the wealth around to others who happened to be born into poverty (if they survived the awful infant mortality rates). To him, it would be obviously more beneficial to donate £30 rather than buy Fallout 3, and to buy Fallout 3 is irredeemably selfish.

    Whether or not you can even begin to agree with his antiquated moral system, considering things like this is at least interesting, whereas shooting 'good people' in a game is as amoral and questionable and anti-heroic as pointing a pop gun at Richard and Judy. We've all committed genocide in Space Invaders and it just doesn't matter.

  • thegamesthething #43 3 years ago

    "Whether or not you can even begin to agree with his antiquated moral system, considering things like this is at least interesting, whereas shooting 'good people' in a game is as amoral and questionable and anti-heroic as pointing a pop gun at Richard and Judy."

    Really?

    /drops pop gun, leaves Didsbury

  • jonbwfc #44 3 years ago

    @jonthepymm

    Yep, I read the whole thing. And I appreciate the fact that Alex in the end found it unpleasant. That proves Alex (as an individual) is a pretty decent bloke. The problem is someone at EG thought this would be an interesting topic for a feature article in the first place. It may not have turned out to be fun but the very fact it exists shows that someone @ EG towers thought 'wonder if it'd be fun to kill absolutely everyone in Fallout 3?' Not only that, they thought enough other people would be interested to know if it would be fun too.

    D'you really think that gives the word at large a good impression, or not? OK, it's wish fulfillment, it doesn't really matter. But that's the best wish EG could come up with?

    I'm not one to say that video games shouldn't be violent. I think they should present the same ranges of entertainment as films & books. I think it's fine to make entertainment that's unsuitable for children but suitable for adults and I think the responsibility of controlling that in your own home should be the responsibility of you as an adult, not the state. That's not what my issue with this is about. The fact is this makes it look like when we play video games the first thing that pops into our heads is mayhem and slaughter. I know that isn't true and you do too, but there are a large number of people out there who have an agenda to suggest that it does and this article plays into their hands.

    Jon
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 11:21

  • cock #45 3 years ago

    Am I alone in essentially having played the game this way anyway? In fact, every game where I'm given the opportunity. Honestly, what's the point in playing a game if you're just going to be the fairly sensible, helpful person you probably are in real life. It's the apocalypse; every man for himself.

  • atomised #46 3 years ago

    great article and great game, i often play the good guy...and i do wonder about the positional difference of the other tack.

  • thedaveeyres #47 3 years ago

    Brilliantly written - really enjoyed that.

  • modo_komodo #48 3 years ago

    That's excellent!

    Moar Plx!

  • BOFH_UK #49 3 years ago

    @jon: "The fact is this makes it look like when we play video games the first thing that pops into our heads is mayhem and slaughter. I know that isn't true and you do too, but there are a large number of people out there who have an agenda to suggest that it does and this article plays into their hands. "

    Disagre on multiple levels with this. First of all this article makes it VERY clear that this isn't the first thing the author, or indeed the majority of people that play it, set out to do. In fact the line "The first time I ran through it, though, I, like most other people, played a hero." is right there on the first page so it clearly isn't the first thing that pops into our collective heads.

    Secondly, you seem to be concerned with playing into the hands of those that consider games 'evil'. Problem with that is if this article doesn't exist it makes NO difference at all. They can justify what they want by persuing knee-jerk reactions along a set agenda regardless of whether any actual studies exist or not. Hell, just go into on-line forums and pull lines out of context, job done. It's pretty much impossible to change the minds of people like this, where we should be concentrating is those people who haven't yet made up their minds and aren't taken in by mindless hysteria but equally won't respond to a biased defense of the subject matter.

    Thirdly, Eurogamer are actually stepping above that level of (and I use the phrase loosely) jounralism by presenting an article which at least tries to address both sides of the argument. Of course we don't know how it will end up yet but at this stage we should be applauding them for at least suggesting that there is the possibility (however small) that the holier than thou brigade is right.

    Fourthly, the article makes clear that there are SERIOUS consequences in the game for killing everything that moves. No help, no docs, no opportunities to barter and, most importantly, no quests to level up (boy is that gonna hurt when entering Downtown...). Thinking ahead a little there's also going to be a LOT of perks and bonuses that aren't going to be available to the player not least of which will be a lack of 'your' room.

    Finally, this isn't the finished article. Trying to draw meaningful conclusions about its worth when we're still missing a large chunk of the work including the conclusion is pointless.

  • Eraysor #50 3 years ago

    Epic. I might go try this myself. I find it really hard to be an evil bastard though. Playing Mass Effect as a cold-hearted Vin Diesel lookalike was difficult for more than one reason.

  • kingofbergamo #51 3 years ago

    Great article. I did the same thing after my first run in the Wasteland. I got say, I rather enjoyed slaving people, and blowing their heads off whenever they though they could ignore me or fight with me... Its really what fun is all about!

    Fallout is most definitely one of the most amazing games of all time. The amount of options the game provides and the sheer size n complexities of the Wasteland are just so... well, fun! ;0

  • jonbwfc #52 3 years ago

    @BOFH
    "Secondly, you seem to be concerned with playing into the hands of those that consider games 'evil'. Problem with that is if this article doesn't exist it makes NO difference at all. They can justify what they want by persuing knee-jerk reactions along a set agenda regardless of whether any actual studies exist or not. Hell, just go into on-line forums and pull lines out of context, job done. It's pretty much impossible to change the minds of people like this, where we should be concentrating is those people who haven't yet made up their minds and aren't taken in by mindless hysteria but equally won't respond to a biased defense of the subject matter."
    Sadly, I'm fairly sure you are correct. However it doesn't mean we should be helping them. What exactly do you think the remaining jack Thompson-alikes are going to do with a published article subtitled 'an experiment in genocide'? Which do you think they are going to wave at the camera, the final page or the first page with that text in big letters?

    "Fourthly, the article makes clear that there are SERIOUS consequences in the game for killing everything that moves. No help, no docs, no opportunities to barter and, most importantly, no quests to level up (boy is that gonna hurt when entering Downtown...)."
    The actual content of the article is essentially irrelevant to the point I was making. It doesn't matter if it turns out to be a good thing or not. As I'm sure you're aware, none of the people with an agenda are going to actually read it anyway. The people you're talking about aren't going to say this is an article about how mass virtual murder turns out to be a bad idea. They're just going to say it's an article about committing mass virtual murder. They're not interested in the conclusion, they're going to say it speaks of the general mindset of gamers. There's a world of difference between the idea that there are games where genocide is the only option (e.g space invaders) and this, where apparently we choose genocide over other options. This seems to me to be a lot less immediately defensible.

    "Finally, this isn't the finished article. Trying to draw meaningful conclusions about its worth when we're still missing a large chunk of the work including the conclusion is pointless."
    The conclusions are irrelevant as the people who will misuse this don't care about them.

    Ok, I've explained my point of view and, apparently looking at the karma they're getting, it's not a discussion people are interested in considering. Thanks to Jonthepymm and BOFH for at least taking the time to put the counter argument.

    Jon

  • metalangel #53 3 years ago

    I didn't really see the point of this article - that it's been spun out across three pages just describing the destruction of Megaton alone (in bloody, chunky detail) is very gratuitous. And more chapters to come? A one-off piece just saying that, having killed everyone possible in the whole game, this is what still worked and what didn't, would have sufficed. What are we expecting anyway? You'll find the quests will either a) be uncompletable because a crucial NPC has died, or b) still be completable because the crucial NPCs are set as essential and can only be knocked unconscious (LOLOLOL I SHOTZ HIS FAEC 20 TIEMS ADN HE JUST KEEPS GETTIGN UP ROFFLES!!!!11)

    It's always been possible to do this in the Fallout games anyway - and all you could do was just kill your way out of quests. I also don't doubt that people do this - I've gone on a few kill rampages at the end of a session just for fun. But I'm not 14 any more, and so writing pages and pages of gruesome deaths and suffering doesn't amuse me any more.

    Now vote me down because I haven't mindlessly agreed that the article is great.

    PS: @Zulu: You can't free them from the machines as they'll all be over 200 years old - everyone in Tranquility Lane was there before the war and without the life support systems their withered, ancient bodies will just shut down.

    It would be pretty amazing, though - from your perspective, talking to someone who knew the world before the war. And from theirs, knowing that outside the real world is destroyed.

  • ZuluHero #54 3 years ago

    @metalangel

    i know - thats what i said ;)

    But like i was telling Darren - you can leave them alive or dead in their pods. Personally i think killing them was far more merciful mind - so in that instance I thought the karma rating got it wrong - but at least im free to decide and its easy to take the karma hit in that instance.

    And in regards to talking about the world before the war - just talk to many of the ghouls - they'll usually give you their life story of before and after. The lesbian ghoul (carol?) who runs hotel in underworld springs to mind...
    Edited by 5 at 12/08/09 @ 12:36

  • urban #55 3 years ago

    you sound like me on GTA IV...

  • metalangel #56 3 years ago

    @Zulu: I'd forgotten about them... now that I've finished the game I'm a wasteland tourist, seeing the sights from the relative invulnerability of my Enclave Power Armour. I'll go and have a proper visit to Underworld. Cheers!

    @EarlBasset: Every comment on the first 50 that doesn't just say they liked the article has a huge negative score. It's rather depressing.
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 14:24

  • flippet #57 3 years ago

    Hmm, after reading this article I'm tempted to mindlessly and ruthlessly knock a point off everybody's comment score. Just because I can

  • NunianVonFuch #58 3 years ago

    ...something wicked this way comes."
    Interesting article, well written and I look forward to the follow up.
    @Jon I understand your point but personally I think it's a little daft worrying about what other people may think about the article. I enjoyed it, it provoked some decent response in the comments section too, so job done I'd say.

  • guernican #59 3 years ago

    On the one hand, I'm willing to admit that slaughtering the entire population of the Capital Wasteland - time-consuming and, let's be honest, rather boring though it's probably going to be - is an unusual take on things. If only because it never would have occurred to me. Perhaps that's a reflection on my narrow-mindedness, or the fact that I haven't questioned the parameters of the game enough.

    What the aim of the article is - and please, Alexander, tell me if I'm misreading you - is to identify where, if anywhere, the intricately-built structure of the game starts to fall down should you completely ignore the loosely-defined 'rules' that the sandbox environment of an RPG gives you. On that basis, I could probably draw the same conclusions as everyone else.

    You won't get a house. You won't have a dog (for very long). You won't be able to use doctors, buy things, sell things, have any conversations, and so on. Seems almost pointless to have had the conversation with the chap in Arefu before you shot him. Then again, I'm guessing you didn't and added the line for comic effect. I would have done.

    Exploring the moral extremes of games like these seems to me to be an interesting way to go, because a) the Dark side is both entertaining and funny when written well, and b) nearly all of us tend, because we're not borderline sociopaths, to do the 'right' thing most of the time, with the occasional exception when you don't fancy paying for an exceptionally shiny bauble.

    Just shooting everyone, on the other hand, would only seem to have a point if you're trying to make the narrative fall over in some sort of weird or amusing way. Which, if that's the article's point, is fair enough. Tell you what, though. After a 4 or 5 hour run of Fallout 3, watching heads explode and limbs fly off started to get really, really old. I'd imagine Alexander is sick of seeing it already.

    I don't object on moral grounds. I don't give a tinker's trinkets whether some talking head feels like holding up these 800 words and proclaiming the end of civilization As We Know It (copyright Sid Meier). What's he/she going to do... bring down the games industry?

    I just don't see where the article can go. And, as I said originally, I'm completely happy to be proved wrong. Open minds. Can't beat 'em.

  • darc #60 3 years ago

    This is a really fun concept for a series of articles, and I'd love to see the same treatment given to other RPG's as an alternate means of critiquing them. I imagine most would result in amusingly (and tellingly) nonsensical prose if you tried to pull them off-script like this.

  • Verwandlung #61 3 years ago

    The writing/voice acting in F3 is far more shocking than the violence:

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=05akmWwvzBQ
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 16:50

  • MaTTy_P #62 3 years ago

    Quality article. Busy playing through the game myself, accidently ended up shooting someone in Megaton, and it all went a little bit squiffy after that. Reloaded and continued normally.

  • BTBAM #63 3 years ago

    Really well written article.

  • p00ntang #64 3 years ago

    LOVE this article

  • p00ntang #65 3 years ago

    +100 for Bowie ref too

  • kaya08 #66 3 years ago

    Great article.
    I've always tried the evil way in games ... but never anything even vaguely close to this. I stayed within the confines of the game, completing evil, quests. I'd talk to people and if they were evil or offered decent rewards for being evil, then I'd leave them be. It was the very rare annoying, dislikable characters would be the only one's I'd kill. And honestly it didn't bother me that much.
    He's not being an evil character.He's being a psycopath killing absolutely everything that moves. He's taking evilness to an extreme. He's playing it like a training ground for going out on a real life killing spree to test rag tabloids claims that it will make him (or make him want to) go out on a real life killing spree.
    And it actually sounds like a really, really horrible experience. Theres no way in hell i kind stick that kind of experience and I enjoy the usual story means of being evil (I had a character in F3 who had max bad karma) reading the article made me cringe.
    Its an interesting article. And it'll be interesting to see the effects of playing a game in this manner. I'd imagine it would be pretty stressful at the very least.
    But the test is kind of flawed in that I think you'd have to be kind of disturbed to willingly play a game in that manner. Which is the basic counter-argument to tabloids claims that gaming creates disturbed people who go on to kill all there class mates or whatever.
    Or at least that's what the article seemed to mean to me. Maybe I'm wrong.

  • avoozl #67 3 years ago

    "Kids are off the menu because a) Fallout 3 doesn't let you kill them, and b) I couldn't do it, anyway"

    So what makes killing virtual children worse than killing virtual adults? They're innocent in real life? So are animals. Defenseless? So are a lot of animals and people. I find it disturbing that you're suddenly adding moral judgments in to this determined orgy of violence. So you're going around gruesomely killing every living thing like a bloodthirsty lunatic and you suddenly stop at a kid and say "oh no, not the dear child" then continue to murder everyone in sight (in front of the children you decided to spare, mind you).

    It's a computer game, there's no morality, but you're connecting it to real life and trying to make judgments you would make in real life. If you're doing that, and going around killing people that piss you off slightly or whatever, that doesn't mean you're going to do it in real life, but it does mean that you might think it would be okay to kill certain people, or think for instance killing adults is okay but not children. You could be training your mind to resort to violence as a solution to problems or anything that annoys you. I think 99.9% of people won't be violent in real life because of that, but that doesn't mean it can't be mentally damaging.

    So I think it would be impossible to extremely rare for violent gaming to turn someone in to a killer. You would already need to have that tendency, but I'm not sure it's completely trouble-free either. Just look at the deluded state of the author of this article :p

  • metalangel #68 3 years ago

    Yup, the old Fallout games let you kill children. This earned you the 'Childkiller' reputation, which wasn't a good thing. So horrible, in fact, was this infanticide that the European releases were tweaked so the child graphic didn't show up. The in-game entities were still there, you just couldn't see or interact with them, meaning you'd have floating text following you around from an invisible child who was trying to chat with you. Several quests were broken as a result.

    I'm not bothered. While I never intentionally killed any children in Fallout (there's never any point in doing so) I am glad you *are* able to do so in The Sims, though you have to pick your methods carefully as simply walling them up results in the Child Protection Agency turning up and taking them away. An oven and a room full of wooden chairs is a good technique.

  • Les #69 3 years ago

    Interesting discussion developing here. From that perspective alone, the article is valuable IMO.

    There is much still to be researched about the effects (if any) that video games have on our behaviour. A proper scientific evaluation is essential to counter the populist approach of politicians and media, even if in the end it would lead to a similar conclusion.

  • Captain_Jono #70 3 years ago

    I did something similar with Hitman Blood Money. Left me feeling a little sick, but mostly just bored!

    Wading through the levels with a fully upgraded M16 with lazer sight, and 100 round drum magazine seems like a lark, but ultimately there's no challenge to be had shooting innocents. As you say, these aren't space marines (even the level where all the wedding guests are armed). After mowing down the entire level and surveying the carnage, I was left with a feeling of complete emptiness.

    Even in these ultra-realistic super games, you don't get the sense that anything you've done is wrong, other than ruined the fun for yourself. The slew of lifeless bodies just serve as an unwelcome reminder that this is a simulation full of computer sprites. The only thing that makes you empathize with them is the characterization from the narrative. Once you start reducing the characters to target practise you've got no reason to give a damn about them, and by extension the game.

    After that, I started playing properly again.

  • yagisencho #71 3 years ago

    I would do this on occasion in Oblivion - clearng each town of all living things. It was repetitive, expensive (for potions and repairs), left me without vendors, and made a little part of me die inside. In short, exactly what Alexander describes.

    Ultimately it just breaks the game. It's like shooting holes in a cinema screen while watching a movie, or ripping pages out of a book before you've read them. Yes, you can do it, but it robs the experience of its inherent value.

  • dorkrawr #72 3 years ago

    Some fancy written there... keep up the good work.

  • Dr_Mech #73 3 years ago

    One thing kind of annoyed me about Fallout 3 (it leads to the topic at hand), sometimes the whole "kill one person in a settlement...no matter how much of a git they are and we'll all come after you" I'm looking at you Moriarty and Sister, you guys deserve a slegehammer to the back of the head.

    All the characters in Megaton complain about Moriarty in some way or another and it is justified.

    So there I am, deciding that I'm not going to pay the caps he wants for the information on my father. He's outside his saloon looking wistfully at the sunrise right by a railing.

    I crouch and go into sneak mode, go up behind him, got into vats and launch a punch.

    Now with a character who has the strength of 10 this sneak critical proceeded to pitch Moriarty over the balcony in a spectacular fashion, sending him spiralling far enough to accidently smack the Confessor on the noggin before he hits the ground.

    So I proclaim outloud to the people of Megaton "I've killed the guy who was making all your lives miserable people, surely now the just and fair Lucas Simms can run the town?!"

    No Lucas takes one look at the corpse of Moriarty, looks up at me on the balcony (flexin' me pecs for show) and opens fire.

    The entire town joins in this pitched battle as I scurry from cover to cover, picking up weapons and ammuntion from wherever I can...(I left none alive, made myself a tidy profit from all the bottle caps in the various stashes of the stores). So I decided fine, you treat me like I'm a dangerous psychopath...I'll become a dangerous psychopath!

    Up until this point I had been the good guy, doing what seemed right.

    From that point on it became a whole different game, if you treated me nicely, you got treated nicely back...you talk to me with some kind of arrogance in your voice and I'm going to blow your head off. Of course once I'd gotten the Sandman perk I'd wait until whoever the particularly arrogant person in the settlement (there's always one) was asleep and murder them in their room with nobody watching...and then eat their corpse.

    Keep in mind I had modded it with the GECK to turn every essential NPC into a non-essential one... so some quests got kind of broken, still managed to finish the main quest.

  • carlitoswagon #74 3 years ago

    This fantastic article brings back fond memories of my samuria sword visits to the discotheque in San Andreas.

    Think I'll be buying Fallout 3 to help shake the cobwebs off.

  • guernican #75 3 years ago

    "All the characters in Megaton complain about Moriarty in some way or another and it is justified. "

    I'd just like to point out that everyone I know complains about Peter Mandelson.

    Off you jog, then.

  • Gecks #76 3 years ago

    one thing that cold-blooded killing does (uh, in RPGs like fallout) is remind you that 'karma' systems are invariably bullshit. eg, in fallout 3 as long as you give the same tramp some water a few times, you could kill a few innocent people and still be in the black, karma-wise.

    towards the end of the game i massacred the entire population of megaton with a sledgehammer and my karma didn't take a dent, because of all the tramp irrigation i'd been doing.