Fallout 3 - Video games as depictions of sublime
One of my favorite video game franchises of all time is Fallout, because it really explores all aspects, both positive and negative, of an inherently negative thing: apocalypse. While there are plenty of moments I could write about, the one that really strikes me occurred while I played Fallout 3 in middle school. A major part of the playing experience comes from interacting with things that are not needed to complete quests or accomplish anything, but they add to the immersion value. This includes a lot of things, but especially terminals. They all have huge entries that most people easily skip through, as they don’t do much and take a long time to read, but I try to read them whenever I can. One such terminal was in a dilapidated house that I was exploring.
The entries were from the journal of a guy who had just moved into the house (about 100 years prior, before the apocalyptic event occurred). He talked about moving in and the work it took -- nothing important. The only thing that stood out was that he had met a cute neighbor that lived nearby.
The next entry was him recounting their first date. It went well; he had really enjoyed their conversation and he even got a first kiss at the end of the date!
Number three was them moving in together. Four was their marriage. Five was the birth of their son and six, the final entry, was their son winning his first little league game.
I closed the terminal with a smile on my face that I had found a surprisingly sweet moment in an otherwise emotionally devastating game, and I went on to continue my exploring.
The next room contained three skeletons laying side by side, two adult-sized and one smaller. If I had not read the entry, I would not have known why they were significant, and I might not have even noticed them, but the game developers had made them real. I knew them, their lives, their struggles, and now…their deaths. At that age it was really the closest I had ever come to understanding the finality of existence. It was stark, it was dark, and it was one of the first moments of sublime that any form of media had ever shown me.
The entries were from the journal of a guy who had just moved into the house (about 100 years prior, before the apocalyptic event occurred). He talked about moving in and the work it took -- nothing important. The only thing that stood out was that he had met a cute neighbor that lived nearby.
The next entry was him recounting their first date. It went well; he had really enjoyed their conversation and he even got a first kiss at the end of the date!
Number three was them moving in together. Four was their marriage. Five was the birth of their son and six, the final entry, was their son winning his first little league game.
I closed the terminal with a smile on my face that I had found a surprisingly sweet moment in an otherwise emotionally devastating game, and I went on to continue my exploring.
The next room contained three skeletons laying side by side, two adult-sized and one smaller. If I had not read the entry, I would not have known why they were significant, and I might not have even noticed them, but the game developers had made them real. I knew them, their lives, their struggles, and now…their deaths. At that age it was really the closest I had ever come to understanding the finality of existence. It was stark, it was dark, and it was one of the first moments of sublime that any form of media had ever shown me.
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