Fallout 3 : Epic Fail

My heart is aching. Just about everyday, I go visit my little Paragon of Good in the Jefferson Memorial lock up. Just a few experience points away from level 18, and she'll never see the murky daylight of the Wasteland again.

I was all set to RAVE to you about Fallout 3. A perfect combination of gaming treats: a little shooting, a little collecting, a whole lot of exploring and a fantastic storyline to tie it all up. This is the world of post-apocalyptic open-ended gaming, solo-style. No two games are alike. The key element that steers the mood is (not surprisingly) good vs evil story choices. And unlike Mass Effect, where the characters got pissed off if you were rude to them, but the results were the same, in Fallout 3, you really do lead a separate life on either side of the fence. You can even sit ON the fence and be neutral, in which case I guess people start depositing all their money in your banks... Fallout 3 caters to a myriad of gamers. If you prefer story, stick to it. If side quests are your bag, dig in. If you are deep in the core of your being, a TRUE nerd, the physics of object manipulation and interaction are so detailed that you could easily spend several hours just organizing the shelves of your Megaton pad. Yes, I cleaned my apartment. Digitally.

I was in love, goddamn it. 63 hours in and dreaming about Bobbleheads. And then somehow, someway, I stumbled across the MOTHER of all glitches. The Main Story Line, a series of quests which divulge chunk by juicy chunk the whereabouts of your father and the whole point of your crummy digital existence... well, I got to what I assume is about halfway through, when the game just started freezing. No response, reboot. Try again? Freeze again. Yes, I tried everything. I spewed venom all over the forums, I bought a map of Maryland and threw darts at Bethesda. WHY. Why does this have to happen to me?? I found a similar glitch in Champions of Norrath (Damn you, Babik Nurn!). And by similar I mean, the only true way to fix the glitch is to START OVER. With the 'patch' downloaded. Maybe.

But I can't do it, gentle reader. Not right now. The first few levels of that game kinda SUCK anyway. At least they do now that I look back - through this veil of bitter tears. A fellow gamer, content in his comfy past-the-glitch-world suggested I could just go finish all the side quests and explore. How dare he? It's not the SAME!! Nothing will ever be the same. Instead, each day, I power up my Xbox and load the game one more time, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this time it won't freeze. I lost faith along time ago.

You murdered me, Bethesda. Let it be known.