Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 23 - Fallout 1-3: Vaults, Mutants, and Civilization's Collapse

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23 - Fallout 1-3: Vaults, Mutants, and Civilization's Collapse · Mythic Mind Games

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey there, I'm doctor Andrew Snyder, and I'm happy to
0:02
Speaker 1: welcome you to the Mythic Mind Fellowship series on Fallout. Now,
0:07
Speaker 1: these are games that have been near and dear to
0:09
Speaker 1: my heart for many years. I'm starting with Fallout three,
0:12
Speaker 1: New Vegas for I've enjoyed the Amazon series so far,
0:16
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to have an opportunity to talk
0:18
Speaker 1: about this franchise, talk about these games, talk about the show,
0:21
Speaker 1: especially leading up to season two, and so we're going
0:23
Speaker 1: to have some weekly conversations on Fallout. In this episode
0:27
Speaker 1: you're about to listen to or watch over on YouTube.
0:29
Speaker 1: We'll be taking a look at Fallout one through three.
0:31
Speaker 1: Even though I don't have personal experience with one and
0:34
Speaker 1: two yet, I wanted to get the full gambit here,
0:38
Speaker 1: and so fortunately David, my conversation partner, does have experience
0:41
Speaker 1: with these games. Now, to frame expectations, these are not
0:44
Speaker 1: necessarily well researched deep dives into the lore and philosophy
0:50
Speaker 1: of the franchise. Right now, what we're doing mostly off
0:53
Speaker 1: the cuff, casual conversations of games that we may not
0:55
Speaker 1: have played for years, right, and so take that for
0:58
Speaker 1: what it is. These are casual only off the cough
1:00
Speaker 1: conversations about Fallout, but I do think that. In fact,
1:04
Speaker 1: I don't just think. I know that. Next year, at
1:07
Speaker 1: some point in twenty twenty six, I intend to do
1:09
Speaker 1: a full run of one through five for the purpose
1:11
Speaker 1: of putting together a series, a more in depth, well
1:14
Speaker 1: researched series on Fallout and philosophy has been if you know,
1:18
Speaker 1: I'm currently doing that with the Elder Scrolls in Philosophy,
1:20
Speaker 1: and there seems to be a lot of interest in
1:22
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, and so I really want to
1:23
Speaker 1: do this with Fallout. So expect some more of that
1:26
Speaker 1: sort of deep dive next time. But for now, let's
1:28
Speaker 1: go ahead and kick off our more casual conversations on
1:30
Speaker 1: Fallout with Fallout one through three, and then coming next
1:34
Speaker 1: week we'll be getting into New Vegas. All right. Well,
1:36
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it. Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games,
1:46
Speaker 1: an extension of the Mythic Mind Fellowship, which pursues wisdom
1:49
Speaker 1: on the paths between primary and secondary worlds. I'm doctor
1:52
Speaker 1: Andrew Snyder, and I'm glad that you're here. I guess
1:55
Speaker 1: we're ready to go here, got my nukea victory?
1:59
Speaker 2: All right?
2:00
Speaker 1: All right? Well, welcome back, as we begin a little
2:04
Speaker 1: Fallout series. Uh, this time we'll be taking a look
2:06
Speaker 1: at one through three, which I mean, David will have
2:09
Speaker 1: to really carry us for the first two. I'm a
2:13
Speaker 1: I guess relative latecomer. You know, I jumped into Fallout.
2:18
Speaker 1: I guess following Oblivion is probably when Fallout three came out. Yeah,
2:21
Speaker 1: so I get there by it by means of the
2:23
Speaker 1: Elder scrolls. I jumped in. Although when I first got
2:26
Speaker 1: Fallout three, I realized my computer couldn't handle it at
2:29
Speaker 1: the time, so I just hold on to it for
2:31
Speaker 1: a few months until finally it's able to jump in
2:33
Speaker 1: and and then it really just became a mainstay from
2:36
Speaker 1: that point forward, between Fallow three New Vegas four. I
2:40
Speaker 1: like four. I don't feel like it's as good, but
2:42
Speaker 1: I enjoy it quite a bit. I haven't touched seventy
2:44
Speaker 1: six yet. I don't know if maybe I'll get there
2:46
Speaker 1: one day, but I'm not sure. But anyways, Yeah, so
2:50
Speaker 1: I wanted to take some time to talk about it. David,
2:52
Speaker 1: you've been with the series a little bit longer than
2:54
Speaker 1: I have, so why don't you tell me a little
2:56
Speaker 1: bit about your your experience with it? You know what's
2:59
Speaker 1: with the appeal to you wherever you want to go.
3:01
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I have a lot of the same feelings
3:05
Speaker 2: as you. About four was fine. I have no interest
3:09
Speaker 2: in the crafting, base building aspect of it. That I
3:13
Speaker 2: have a friend who has hundreds of hours in it
3:16
Speaker 2: just because he loved that part. But yeah, that wasn't
3:18
Speaker 2: ever an appeal to me.
3:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that can be fun, but it's just Todd.
3:23
Speaker 2: Killer, right, just a different type of gamer than I am,
3:27
Speaker 2: I think. But yeah, I've been in it since the beginning.
3:31
Speaker 2: I was waiting eagerly for the first one to come out,
3:34
Speaker 2: and I loved it. So the plot of the first
3:38
Speaker 2: one is that you're a vault dweller, as it is
3:42
Speaker 2: in all the other ones, and you're born and raised
3:44
Speaker 2: in Vault thirteen, which is in the hills of like
3:47
Speaker 2: southern California, and the chip for the water processing unit
3:52
Speaker 2: and your vault has gone bad, and so you kind
3:54
Speaker 2: of draw the shortest straw and you're pick to go
3:57
Speaker 2: out and find out another one because they're going to
4:00
Speaker 2: run out of drinkable water in like one hundred and
4:03
Speaker 2: fifty days. So there's actually a time limit on that
4:07
Speaker 2: first mission that you have in the game, so you
4:12
Speaker 2: can find like some guys that will agree, like if
4:17
Speaker 2: you have good enough speech abilities or I don't remember
4:20
Speaker 2: exactly how you can convince them, probably multiple ways. You
4:23
Speaker 2: can convince them to bring some water to your vault,
4:26
Speaker 2: which will lengthen the amount of time that you have
4:29
Speaker 2: for that quest. But once you eventually solve the water problem,
4:35
Speaker 2: then the overseer of Vault thirteen wants you to find
4:38
Speaker 2: out where all these mutants are coming from. And it
4:41
Speaker 2: turns out there's this peaceful religious cult called the Children
4:46
Speaker 2: of the Cathedral, but it's really just a front for
4:49
Speaker 2: this leader of the Supermutants, who is you know, he's
4:52
Speaker 2: using this FEV, the forced evolutionary virus, to turn people
4:58
Speaker 2: into supermutants. And once you deal with that, the overseer
5:02
Speaker 2: won't let you back into the vault because he says
5:04
Speaker 2: your experiences on the outside have changed you too much.
5:07
Speaker 2: And you know, you wander off into the sunset and
5:09
Speaker 2: it has kind of a montage of your choices and
5:14
Speaker 2: what they've done to the world. Because it it does
5:17
Speaker 2: have on the larger scale all of the you know,
5:21
Speaker 2: you can explore and find random things. There's tons of
5:24
Speaker 2: side quests, so there's a lot more to it than
5:26
Speaker 2: just the main plot. But that's basically the plot of
5:30
Speaker 2: the first one.
5:34
Speaker 1: That idea of you you can't go home, it's it's
5:39
Speaker 1: an idea that you see in you know a lot
5:41
Speaker 1: of stories of heroism. I even like Lord of the Rings, right,
5:44
Speaker 1: there's no going back to the shire. It's true. So
5:46
Speaker 1: it's I mean it's a bit more brutal or they
5:49
Speaker 1: say you literally can't go back.
5:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. So then in the second one, which really I
5:55
Speaker 2: don't think it was too much later. I think it
5:57
Speaker 2: was like ninety seven for the first one, and I
6:01
Speaker 2: don't think my son had even been born before the
6:03
Speaker 2: second one came out, so just a few years later.
6:06
Speaker 2: But in that one, you're a villager who is the
6:11
Speaker 2: grandchild of the vault dweller from the first one, and
6:14
Speaker 2: there's this awful drought and your village is going to die.
6:17
Speaker 2: So you're the They say you're the chosen one. They
6:20
Speaker 2: give you the vault dweller's suit that they've been keeping,
6:24
Speaker 2: and they send you out to find this thing called
6:27
Speaker 2: the GEK, which stands for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit,
6:33
Speaker 2: And so you go back to Vault thirteen because they're
6:36
Speaker 2: supposed to be one there, but you find like intelligent
6:41
Speaker 2: death clause, there's something weird going on and no gek.
6:45
Speaker 2: So you go back to your village, but everybody has
6:48
Speaker 2: been captured by the Enclave, which is the remains of
6:52
Speaker 2: the US government, And then you find their base. It's
6:56
Speaker 2: in like an offshore rig, and you find all your people,
6:58
Speaker 2: and then you also find the people from Vault thirteen,
7:02
Speaker 2: so you know, you rescue them, you blow the place up,
7:05
Speaker 2: and you take the get back and make your village
7:10
Speaker 2: into this lush garden and everybody lives happily ever after.
7:13
Speaker 2: But again, there's much more to the game than that,
7:18
Speaker 2: a much bigger world to explore and lots of funny
7:21
Speaker 2: side question things to do.
7:23
Speaker 1: So what I mean, you know, I haven't played the originals.
7:28
Speaker 1: What do you think is the draw there? I mean,
7:30
Speaker 1: what to you?
7:31
Speaker 2: What?
7:32
Speaker 1: What's the appeal?
7:33
Speaker 2: Well, I you know, there's not They're not three D.
7:37
Speaker 2: It's sort of a top down isometric view. But I
7:42
Speaker 2: think a lot of the things that you love about
7:44
Speaker 2: Fallout three are still there, Like you know, they Fallout
7:49
Speaker 2: three did a really good job of staying true to
7:51
Speaker 2: the world that the first two games had built, you know,
7:54
Speaker 2: all of the same creatures, the rad roaches and the
7:58
Speaker 2: you know everything, and the races and the perks that
8:02
Speaker 2: you have and the way that you level up, and
8:05
Speaker 2: Nuka cola and bottle caps and all that stuff are
8:09
Speaker 2: in those original games, and I appreciate how they appreciated it. Yes,
8:14
Speaker 2: speaking of Nuka cola. But the main difference is the
8:21
Speaker 2: world map is just this single screen where you click
8:26
Speaker 2: where you want to go and then time passes. I
8:31
Speaker 2: didn't really raise my hand, but okay, time passes as
8:34
Speaker 2: the line is slowly drawn on the map as you
8:38
Speaker 2: work towards wherever you're going, and depending on you know,
8:41
Speaker 2: your luck stats and things like that, you may randomly
8:45
Speaker 2: encounter something in the wasteland as you're trying to go
8:48
Speaker 2: from point A to point B. Like you remember, there's
8:52
Speaker 2: like a UFO you can find in Fallout three, and
8:56
Speaker 2: there's like a special ray gun in there. That's kind
8:59
Speaker 2: of a throw because if you got really good luck,
9:01
Speaker 2: you may find this crashed UFO and a special weapon
9:04
Speaker 2: and things like that. The time constraint, I don't remember,
9:09
Speaker 2: are there time constraints in three? Like no, no, it's free,
9:15
Speaker 2: So there's just like day and night cycles, but not
9:17
Speaker 2: really you have to get things done by a certain day.
9:20
Speaker 1: Okay, it sounds sounds stressful. It gives me a flashbacks
9:24
Speaker 1: to Majora's Mask.
9:25
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, a little bit longer of a timeframe than that,
9:30
Speaker 2: but yeah, but yeah, I enjoyed that aspect of it.
9:34
Speaker 2: But of course we couldn't have done a true open world,
9:37
Speaker 2: especially not in two D back in those days. But
9:41
Speaker 2: there was also like Fallout Tactics Brotherhood of Steel, which
9:47
Speaker 2: it didn't have any of the exploration. It wasn't an RPG.
9:49
Speaker 2: It was pretty much just the combat centered around these
9:53
Speaker 2: brothers steel bases, and it didn't hold my interest at all.
9:56
Speaker 2: I was really disappointed in it. But I think it
9:59
Speaker 2: may be even been developed by other people, but I'm
10:01
Speaker 2: not sure.
10:02
Speaker 1: And then in follow three we were still being driven
10:07
Speaker 1: by this water. You know, got to fix the water
10:09
Speaker 1: supply at this point, more regionally than just for the Vault. Right.
10:14
Speaker 1: And so you know, your your dad runs off and
10:18
Speaker 1: he you don't really know why, and so but eventually
10:20
Speaker 1: you go off to follow him and you find out
10:22
Speaker 1: he's he's been trying to He wasn't born in the Vault, right,
10:25
Speaker 1: and so he was a scientist, part of this project
10:30
Speaker 1: to bring water to the area, clean water. But then
10:34
Speaker 1: once the kid that the player was born, he decides, Okay,
10:39
Speaker 1: we're going to just stay in the vault and you know,
10:40
Speaker 1: stay where it's safe. Until finally he goes back out
10:43
Speaker 1: again and you find him. He's like, it's been a
10:46
Speaker 1: while since I've played, and I didn't do my homework reviewing.
10:49
Speaker 1: You find him in one of the other vaults, right
10:52
Speaker 1: where he's like stuck in the simulation. Is that?
10:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a nineteen fifties sort of a simulation.
10:57
Speaker 1: Right with this creepy girl avatar.
11:01
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, I figured you would have. You would have
11:05
Speaker 2: been prepared for this.
11:06
Speaker 1: I know I wasn't. I didn't do my homework. No
11:09
Speaker 1: I do.
11:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like a scientist of some kind, right, and
11:13
Speaker 2: uh and it and it is in the DC area.
11:19
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't. I don't remember all of those specifics.
11:23
Speaker 1: Well, okay, I remember. So after after you find him
11:28
Speaker 1: and you find out what's going on, the the enclave
11:31
Speaker 1: shows up like at the purification center device whatever, and
11:37
Speaker 1: that your your dad. You radiates the place to take
11:41
Speaker 1: out the enclave, but he kills himself in the process,
11:44
Speaker 1: and so then you you eventually get captured by the
11:48
Speaker 1: enclave and you get taken to the President, which is
11:51
Speaker 1: this AI, right, it's this this computer is the President
11:54
Speaker 1: who's in charge, and what it wants to do in
11:58
Speaker 1: order to redeem the waste land and is to basically
12:01
Speaker 1: just kill everything that's been mutated, so all the creatures,
12:06
Speaker 1: the super mutan's gruls, or even just people who have
12:09
Speaker 1: I guess enough radioactivity in them, so you just want
12:12
Speaker 1: to wipe them all out to sort of sanitize the place,
12:16
Speaker 1: which you can do if you want. You can, you
12:18
Speaker 1: can go through with that, or obviously you can not.
12:22
Speaker 1: By the time you get to the end, you have
12:24
Speaker 1: to you have to make a decision on not only
12:28
Speaker 1: do killy one or not, but also you know, if
12:30
Speaker 1: you're going to begin this water purification system, like you
12:33
Speaker 1: have to go into this place that's now full of radiation,
12:37
Speaker 1: and so you know, you can die or you can
12:39
Speaker 1: send one of your companions or somebody else, right right, Yeah.
12:45
Speaker 2: Just like a I'm picturing like maybe a blonde woman
12:50
Speaker 2: who's in like Brotherhood of Steel kind of armor or something.
12:53
Speaker 2: Maybe that's so familiar, Yes, I think you can send
12:56
Speaker 2: her in there, make her take the fall. Yeah, and
13:01
Speaker 2: it's some kind of like miraculous almost scientific discovery that's
13:07
Speaker 2: going to fix the water. And I don't remember exactly
13:09
Speaker 2: what it is, but.
13:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there is that air of the supernatural.
13:14
Speaker 1: I mean, even at the beginning, before you leave the vault,
13:17
Speaker 1: there's that reference to Revelation that verse. I think you're
13:21
Speaker 1: told it was your mother's favorite verse, Revelation twenty one six.
13:25
Speaker 1: I am Alpha and Omega the beginning, in the end,
13:27
Speaker 1: I will give unto him. That is a thirst of
13:28
Speaker 1: the fountain of the water of life freely. It really
13:31
Speaker 1: is getting framed in this very salviafic redemptive kind of form,
13:36
Speaker 1: which I mean, it's good to know that in the
13:40
Speaker 1: wasteland we still have scripture around, because I mean, you know,
13:45
Speaker 1: you get some religious stuff in Fallout, not a lot
13:48
Speaker 1: of explicit connection to Christianity, but this is one of them.
13:52
Speaker 1: And I think that when you're in Rivet City, one
13:54
Speaker 1: of the major cities that's I think it's on a
13:56
Speaker 1: ship in Fallow three that you find a couple priests
14:02
Speaker 1: or something, which I mean, if there's an ordination process
14:06
Speaker 1: for real, and I guess there's a church somewhere. That's
14:10
Speaker 1: one of things I like about Fallout that overall it's
14:13
Speaker 1: a very dark, grim place, but there are these little
14:17
Speaker 1: beacons of light, these little beacons of hope. I mean,
14:21
Speaker 1: even in the Fallout show, which have you seen that yet?
14:25
Speaker 2: I haven't. I've heard it's great.
14:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's It's very in keeping with the world. But
14:31
Speaker 1: this is ongoing theme, especially toward the beginning when the
14:34
Speaker 1: protagonists Lucy, you know, she keeps talking about, you know,
14:37
Speaker 1: she's very optimistic and kind of rosie Id coming out
14:40
Speaker 1: of the vault, and she keeps talking about how important
14:42
Speaker 1: is to maintain the Golden rule, you know, to you know,
14:46
Speaker 1: be a good person, despite the fact that she's constantly
14:48
Speaker 1: getting mistreated. There is that theme in the fall Out universe.
14:53
Speaker 1: As dark and despairing as things are, there's still some
14:56
Speaker 1: hope you can hold on to. It's still possible to
14:58
Speaker 1: hold on to virtue even though literally everything has crumbled
15:01
Speaker 1: around you. So that's one of the things that I
15:03
Speaker 1: appreciate about Fallout. Provides a little breath from the general
15:07
Speaker 1: grime and grossness of the world. Right.
15:10
Speaker 2: I have been thinking about that too, because you know,
15:14
Speaker 2: the the world in the Old Testament outside of you know, Judaism,
15:23
Speaker 2: A lot of it was just sort of like, you know,
15:26
Speaker 2: it's like Mad Max, but there's no guns in Gasoline.
15:28
Speaker 2: It's just like people with strength are just doing whatever
15:32
Speaker 2: they want to do. If you leave the protection of
15:34
Speaker 2: your group, there's no telling what kind of things might
15:38
Speaker 2: might happen to you, you know, if you just wander
15:40
Speaker 2: off alone. So I think post apocalyptic stories kind of
15:44
Speaker 2: return us to a more primitive sort of a state
15:49
Speaker 2: where you can if you are a person that has
15:53
Speaker 2: honor and you try to show heroism in that world
15:57
Speaker 2: where being virtuous can put you in real danger. It's
16:01
Speaker 2: creating an environment where characters like that can really shine,
16:04
Speaker 2: you know. So yeah, but that's that's usually how I
16:08
Speaker 2: play the characters anyway. I know, you you you don't
16:11
Speaker 2: always make the virtuous choices.
16:12
Speaker 1: And in my old age, I've come around. I think
16:16
Speaker 1: I enjoy being the good guy now. I like putting
16:20
Speaker 1: things back in order, where yeah, historically I tended to
16:24
Speaker 1: be something of an anti hero at best, but yeah,
16:28
Speaker 1: I like putting things back in order. And that what
16:31
Speaker 1: you talked about, how you go back to the pagan era,
16:34
Speaker 1: which you know, it can't easily get romanticized versus the
16:38
Speaker 1: reality of pagan life, that it's not fundamentally different than
16:42
Speaker 1: what we get in a post apocalyptic scenario when the
16:46
Speaker 1: institutions and civilization as we've built it over time, you know,
16:50
Speaker 1: when that stripped away, Well, we're back to where we
16:52
Speaker 1: were before they were there, right, And it's you know,
16:57
Speaker 1: I often see and I posted something about this today
16:59
Speaker 1: that I often and see that the message of Fallout
17:01
Speaker 1: is some kind of like anti capitalism or something. But
17:04
Speaker 1: I really don't think that's the case. I think it's well,
17:07
Speaker 1: war never changes, right, that's the tagline that you know,
17:12
Speaker 1: we have all this promise of optimism in the the
17:18
Speaker 1: other version of the fifties dynamic that we have where
17:21
Speaker 1: everything's happy and we have this unbridled future, and especially
17:24
Speaker 1: in this world where you know, there's all this great
17:26
Speaker 1: technology and you know the cards are running on cold
17:29
Speaker 1: fusion or whatever, like everything's great. Well, all those optimism
17:33
Speaker 1: in human progress, well are now tempered with the reality
17:37
Speaker 1: of where that or eventually leads kind of unstoppably, that
17:42
Speaker 1: human realities don't fundamentally change. And so as we become
17:46
Speaker 1: more powerful, we like to think that's going to allow
17:48
Speaker 1: us to just fix all the problems. But the reality
17:50
Speaker 1: is that, well, now we can punch each other a
17:52
Speaker 1: little bit harder. That's how we end up here.
17:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do. Can you imagine if the Fallout
18:01
Speaker 2: games didn't have this overly optimistic, overly capitalistic also sort
18:12
Speaker 2: of a vision like a nineteen fifties sort of a
18:15
Speaker 2: futuristic version of the world that has been destroyed, like
18:19
Speaker 2: to see the remnants of this, you know, duck and
18:23
Speaker 2: cover kind of nineteen fifties looking stuff. I think that
18:26
Speaker 2: juxtaposition is more jarring and create some pretty funny and
18:31
Speaker 2: interesting things. I mean, like Nuka cola. Yeah, it's a
18:35
Speaker 2: little radioactive, but they're just like, it's not that big
18:38
Speaker 2: of a problem. You know. That is kind of you know,
18:42
Speaker 2: I wasn't around in the nineteen fifties, but that is
18:45
Speaker 2: sort of the image that you get of a lot
18:46
Speaker 2: of the advertisements and propaganda from the time.
18:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like in the Fallout world, the car
18:56
Speaker 1: accidents must have been a major liability given. Hell you
19:00
Speaker 1: so they they explode in the ball games.
19:03
Speaker 2: It's right, Well you you live in Virginia, right, right,
19:09
Speaker 2: so you've surely been to Washington, D C. How does
19:15
Speaker 2: that feel to you when you play? I mean, I've been,
19:17
Speaker 2: but I don't live anywhere near.
19:19
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I can't help but to think
19:22
Speaker 1: about it as you as you walk around. Yeah, and
19:27
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of neat when you're playing
19:30
Speaker 1: the game and you're seeing things that you've actually visited
19:34
Speaker 1: in real life, you know, and it's uh former glorious. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: so's it's it's cool. Yeah.
19:41
Speaker 2: And the I mean I the Metro subway system. The
19:46
Speaker 2: main thing that they maintained from that is like the
19:48
Speaker 2: shape of the the arch of the of the underground
19:51
Speaker 2: parts from the DC Metro that I love about the
19:57
Speaker 2: DC Metro to this day, how much it looks exactly
20:00
Speaker 2: like it did when I went to Washington, d C.
20:02
Speaker 2: In like nineteen eighty four. You know, the very same
20:06
Speaker 2: aesthetic when I'm when I'm in the Metro. So it's
20:10
Speaker 2: not that's not quite in keeping with the with the
20:13
Speaker 2: fifties field, but I do like what they maintain of that.
20:16
Speaker 2: And in Fallout four, Yeah, I went to Boston for
20:20
Speaker 2: the first time shortly after I'd played Fallout four and
20:23
Speaker 2: was thinking about, oh, yeah, i've been. I went to
20:26
Speaker 2: that place, and yeah, it's it's it's kind of fun
20:31
Speaker 2: to play in a game that is in a real
20:33
Speaker 2: world place that, you know. I love that they even
20:38
Speaker 2: though Fallout three is a first person shooter first and foremost,
20:45
Speaker 2: I love that they were able to maintain the VATS
20:49
Speaker 2: system because in Fallout one or two you have the
20:51
Speaker 2: pit boy, the same interface and everything, but the combat
20:55
Speaker 2: is if I remember right, things are happening and then
21:01
Speaker 2: you begin combat mode and it stops time, like when
21:05
Speaker 2: you go into VATS in Fallout three and you can
21:08
Speaker 2: target body parts of who you're attacking and things like that.
21:15
Speaker 2: That's really satisfying in Fallout three when you get those
21:18
Speaker 2: cool slow most shots and everything when you're shooting mutants
21:23
Speaker 2: and whatnot. I think that's one of the things that
21:27
Speaker 2: I that made me not really enjoy Starfield was that
21:32
Speaker 2: it didn't have the style and the hook and that
21:37
Speaker 2: pausing time aspect to the combat the way that Fallout does.
21:43
Speaker 2: It's just a straight first person shooter with some RPG
21:47
Speaker 2: elements and that. So yeah, that's I played all the
21:53
Speaker 2: way through Starfield, but I didn't really enjoy it. I
21:55
Speaker 2: know some of the other people in the discord did
21:59
Speaker 2: really enjoy it. But I just think Fallout three is
22:02
Speaker 2: its whole art direction and just the world building and
22:05
Speaker 2: everything is much more interesting to me.
22:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still haven't touched Starfield, and I don't know
22:13
Speaker 1: that I ever will, just based off what I've seen,
22:15
Speaker 1: based off what I've heard. Again, no offense to are
22:19
Speaker 1: people who like the games that they can they can
22:22
Speaker 1: have their own chat on it if they want to.
22:25
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I really
22:30
Speaker 1: enjoy To me, Bethesda is Fallout and Elder Scrolls like,
22:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just I'm not I don't know
22:36
Speaker 1: if I want to go anywhere else, but you know,
22:39
Speaker 1: I appreciate that on hand. You know, well, Elder Scrolls
22:42
Speaker 1: is it's very bright in that it's more fantastical overall.
22:45
Speaker 1: I mean, it has the darker moments too, but overall,
22:47
Speaker 1: I would say it's more more fantastical, you know, the
22:50
Speaker 1: beautiful sceneries all that sort of thing. But then Fallout
22:53
Speaker 1: it's just such a contrast to that where everything is
22:56
Speaker 1: just so grimy. But by the fact, if that's the case,
23:02
Speaker 1: that the landscape like there's not a great deal of variety.
23:04
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously if you go closer to the Capitol.
23:07
Speaker 1: Things are more dense, but otherwise not a big variety
23:11
Speaker 1: in scenery, which means that they have to go a
23:13
Speaker 1: little bit a little bit further to really build out
23:16
Speaker 1: the world to make it feel like you're going to
23:18
Speaker 1: different places, and I feel like they do that quite well.
23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the u When you find a different vault,
23:29
Speaker 2: there's something else weird about that vault. It was like
23:33
Speaker 2: all of the vaults were basically a social experiment of
23:37
Speaker 2: some kind being run by people behind the scenes. I
23:41
Speaker 2: remember one vault like everybody was just a clone of
23:46
Speaker 2: a guy named Gary or something, and they just say
23:49
Speaker 2: Gary over and over.
23:50
Speaker 1: It r Yeah, there's like the sentient plant people. I
23:56
Speaker 1: don't know if that's in three or not. I can
23:58
Speaker 1: mix them up sometimes, but yeah, it's another thing kind
24:02
Speaker 1: of funny and someone else uncomically just unbelievable. But in
24:07
Speaker 1: the show when they're making the vaults and they're all
24:09
Speaker 1: thrown out the different ideas, it's just ridiculous. But it
24:13
Speaker 1: is fun to especially in the game, just to discover
24:15
Speaker 1: these things.
24:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about some of the moral decisions
24:23
Speaker 2: I remembered from the games. There's, of course the city
24:26
Speaker 2: of Megaton that just has the giant undetonated bomb in
24:30
Speaker 2: the middle of the town. I don't remember why someone
24:34
Speaker 2: wants you to blow it.
24:35
Speaker 1: Up, right, the guy had Tenpenny Towers. He wants you
24:40
Speaker 1: to blow it up because he thinks it's a nice.
24:42
Speaker 2: Or okay, perfect. So the Tenpenny Tower is another strange thing.
24:50
Speaker 2: Like I remember convincing the residents of Tenpenny Tower, Hey,
24:55
Speaker 2: like these Ghuls, they're just people like you need to
24:58
Speaker 2: get along with the goals and let them come live here.
25:00
Speaker 2: And then you do that and you come back later
25:02
Speaker 2: and the gouals have just killed all the people. You know,
25:05
Speaker 2: they're like, oh they were awful. You know, we had
25:08
Speaker 2: some disagreements or something, and they're all just laying there dead.
25:13
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure what the moral is there, Like
25:16
Speaker 2: the only good mutants a dead mutant, I guess.
25:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've seen somebody try to use that for i'
25:25
Speaker 1: becating for close borders. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is
25:34
Speaker 1: something about fallout, like you can do what you feel
25:36
Speaker 1: like it is the morally right thing, it just doesn't
25:38
Speaker 1: turn out right.
25:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. I kind of appreciate that though, because I've talked
25:44
Speaker 2: about before how a lot of times being the good
25:49
Speaker 2: guy is too easy in these games. You know, it's
25:53
Speaker 2: harder to figure out how to do the bad guy stuff,
25:57
Speaker 2: like if you just just say yes and be polite
26:00
Speaker 2: at every opportunity. In a lot of games, that's the
26:03
Speaker 2: good guy path. But there's things like this tenpenny tower
26:07
Speaker 2: deal where I was left in the end like did
26:10
Speaker 2: I do the wrong thing? Should I load up a
26:13
Speaker 2: save file? I'm not sure I should have done that,
26:16
Speaker 2: but yeah.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that was pretty shocking to me that,
26:23
Speaker 1: you know, playing this game. Especially by that point, I
26:26
Speaker 1: probably hadn't played a lot of games with really strong
26:29
Speaker 1: moral decisions to make. And one of the first decision
26:33
Speaker 1: you can make is to just blow up this entire town.
26:37
Speaker 1: And if you do it then, I mean, obviously most
26:41
Speaker 1: of them die, but at least some of them. Like
26:43
Speaker 1: that the one person who makes you do the field
26:45
Speaker 1: journal requests, like she turns into a ghoul speaking, so.
26:48
Speaker 2: She's still there, right, Yeah, that thought that was funny.
26:56
Speaker 2: So there's not I can't remember what all factions there are,
27:00
Speaker 2: you know, the Brotherhood of Steal, the Supermutants, and I
27:04
Speaker 2: remember that there you can get a companion who's a
27:07
Speaker 2: super mutant at some point. Michael Dorn is the voice
27:12
Speaker 2: of you know, he was Wharf in Star Trek. He's
27:16
Speaker 2: the voice of a cybernetic supermutant guy who's working for
27:20
Speaker 2: the Enclave in Fallout two, and I think they got
27:24
Speaker 2: I forget his name, the guy who played mcgiver. He's
27:29
Speaker 2: like the voice of the first mayor of the town
27:31
Speaker 2: you come across in the original Fallout. But like ninety
27:36
Speaker 2: I'd say at least ninety five percent of the dialogue
27:39
Speaker 2: in the game is not actually voiced by anyone, just
27:42
Speaker 2: specific lines by specific characters. In the first two are
27:46
Speaker 2: are voiced at all. But I would encourage people like,
27:50
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can get them on goog dot com
27:54
Speaker 2: or I don't know, they may even be on Steam.
27:56
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't rule them out just because the graphics
28:00
Speaker 2: look old, because I do think the story and the
28:02
Speaker 2: game plan everything is really still there. I haven't played
28:06
Speaker 2: them in a while, but you know, people still like
28:10
Speaker 2: the old Balder's Gate and and things like that, and
28:13
Speaker 2: it's from about the same time as the original balders Gate,
28:18
Speaker 2: and I think it holds up personally.
28:20
Speaker 1: But yeah, I need to go back. I do have
28:24
Speaker 1: them in my Steve library like you do. Yeah, I
28:29
Speaker 1: think I think sometime next year I might do something
28:32
Speaker 1: kind of going to with the elder School's course where
28:34
Speaker 1: we really do my homework first of all, but also
28:37
Speaker 1: really do a kind of more of a breakdown, more
28:41
Speaker 1: of a deep dive philosophy that sort of stuff, you know,
28:43
Speaker 1: looking at all the expansions and you know, starting with
28:46
Speaker 1: the first game, and so I will get there eventually.
28:50
Speaker 2: That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember in three,
28:55
Speaker 2: but I do remember in New Vegas, which I don't
28:57
Speaker 2: want to talk about too much, like there are because
29:02
Speaker 2: I like to try to make everybody happy if I can.
29:07
Speaker 2: But in New Vegas, at least, there's not a way
29:11
Speaker 2: to please everyone, And I think that may be true
29:14
Speaker 2: in three as well, Like you can't be friends with
29:16
Speaker 2: the Brotherhood of Steal and some of these other groups,
29:20
Speaker 2: like they they find out that you're you've betrayed whatever
29:24
Speaker 2: oath you may have sworn to them and things like that.
29:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, at one point after the brother Hood of Steal
29:30
Speaker 1: that they help you accomplish the main quest. It might
29:33
Speaker 1: be in the Broken Steel expansion when you have the
29:38
Speaker 1: option of nuking them.
29:39
Speaker 2: Okay, is that where there's the big robot Liberty Prime
29:43
Speaker 2: or whatever they throw the nukes and yeah.
29:46
Speaker 1: Right with its anti communist slogans.
29:49
Speaker 2: It's right, and that I think it was China was
29:57
Speaker 2: the other party in the nuclear war that caused the
30:02
Speaker 2: apocalypse in the original games. I'm sure they carried that
30:04
Speaker 2: through and as well.
30:06
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and there's that Anchorage expansion, so alread you
30:10
Speaker 1: go through that, that simulation of the of the Chinese
30:16
Speaker 1: and beating Alaska, I think.
30:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I like I love the opening of three.
30:25
Speaker 2: The character creation, the way that you're kind of like
30:28
Speaker 2: seeing the vignettes of your childhood growing up and looking
30:31
Speaker 2: at the picture book for all the different skills. I
30:35
Speaker 2: think that's really cleverly done.
30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there's just a polish and like I already said,
30:42
Speaker 2: a very distinct style to the Fallout games that I
30:45
Speaker 2: think works really well. It was a brilliant idea to
30:48
Speaker 2: let you just listen to these old songs as you
30:52
Speaker 2: roam the countryside, because that just really solidifies the feel
30:57
Speaker 2: of the whole thing, and I think it's pretty great.
30:59
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that juxtaposition of the radio with what you're
31:04
Speaker 1: doing walking the waste lane and shooting greaters or whatever, right, Yeah,
31:09
Speaker 1: you get that optimism and cheerfulness with the grime and
31:13
Speaker 1: the muck of the reality. Yeah, I love the Fallout music.
31:20
Speaker 2: Well, think of anything else?
31:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'll do a better job of preparing
31:27
Speaker 1: for New Vegas. Thinks this is a good, just general
31:31
Speaker 1: conversation for starting the series.
31:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
31:35
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I guess we'll go ahead and wrap
31:39
Speaker 1: it their right, and then next time I think we'll
31:42
Speaker 1: have at least a couple more folks. I know Josh
31:44
Speaker 1: wanted to join us again. He hasn't been around for
31:46
Speaker 1: a while, but all right, so next time to New Vegas.
31:51
Speaker 1: Let see then, all right, Well, thank you for listening
32:03
Speaker 1: to the Mythic Mind Games podcast or watching over on
32:05
Speaker 1: my YouTube channel. And know that if you are watching
32:07
Speaker 1: that you can listen to the go over on the
32:09
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind Games podcast. And if you're listening, know that
32:12
Speaker 1: you can get the full visual experience by watching over
32:14
Speaker 1: on YouTube. And you can find links to both of
32:16
Speaker 1: those in the show notes. And if you enjoy these conversations,
32:19
Speaker 1: you enjoy the kinds of things we do over at
32:21
Speaker 1: Mythic mind whether it be on Mythic Mind Games or
32:25
Speaker 1: the main Mythic Mind platform or Mythic Mind movies and shows.
32:28
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32:38
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32:43
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32:50
Speaker 1: the ability to join in these conversations. The next thing
32:53
Speaker 1: to come out from Mythic Mind will probably be through
32:55
Speaker 1: the main Mythic Mind podcast as we continue with the
32:58
Speaker 1: fiction of philosophy of C. S. Lewis in to the
33:00
Speaker 1: Chronicles of Narnia with a Silver Chair. And then next
33:02
Speaker 1: time we're here we'll be talking about New Vegas. And
33:05
Speaker 1: so that's it for now until next time. Godspeed,