To Bethesda's credit, they did have Liberty Prime yelling that "death was preferable to communism" while being a disembodied robot head in a blasted, entirely dead world where everything was shit.
And then in credit to Gamers the world over, it went over their heads with a big whooshing noise.
And then in credit to Gamers the world over, it went over their heads with a big whooshing noise.
And I'm not sure being even less subtle would work; you always find CHUDs taking it literally. Another example is Fight Club - there are tons of people that don't even begin to see the criticism of toxic masculinity in the movie. They adore the Brad Pitt character.
So, this video is an hour long, but it explains really well to me how the directors choices are responsible for turning Palahniuk's work about how our conception of masculinity is toxic into one that encourages toxic masculinity. Essentially, the movie does a shit ton to make Brad Pitt cool, and little to discourage that perspective. https://youtu.be/SjLOFLE4JRw
Huh, I though I remember being told that the book played everything 100% straight and the film kinda riffed on that and only the film criticized toxic masculinity, but I might be mixing that up with another book-to-film adaption. (I know something like that was the case with Starship Troopers, so maybe my brain extended that to Fight Club too, but I swear it was said about both).
I know something like that was the case with Starship Troopers
Sounds about right - the movie parodies fascism but the book tends to incense it. Despite being a good writer, Heinlein was not a good person at all. You can also, for example, feel a deep misogyny in a lot of his books.
The problem is that irony and satire does NOT work as a propaganda tool. Irony in art just becomes something that gets unironically used by those it criticises.
The factions aren't just "capitalism bad" so they don't understand the theme.
Dropped lol
All of Bethesda's Fallout entries, despite their flaws, fully understand and implement capitalism's direct role in bringing about the end of the world. Almost every single corp in the game can be found to have some kind of malicious activity that it's partaking in to make as much profit as possible.
Hell, Nuka Cola itself basically went from a joke item in the first game to being a full out evil corporation that crushes competition through buyouts and literal attacks on competitors. They're even directly involved in the military industrial complex, directly benefiting from their tech while also helping them develop technology in return.
The Institute are an isolationist utopia that justifies it's atrocities by saying that the world above is a lost cause, full of savages and such that are to be exploited and disposed of when needed. Their "science" is used to justify every horrible thing they do to anyone. They're probably one of the most developed imperialist factions in the series. It truly understands the way that these people think. Even their rejection of synth individuality is based on keeping their way of life intact and merely uses a flimsy "logic" to justify this. It's directly a criticism of scientific racism and imperialism as a whole which are completely interlinked with capitalism.
The state of West Virginia was destroyed thrice over, once when corporations and the government bulldozed its towns and forests, and fired its workforce in the name of progress. Second when the bombs dropped, a consequence of pointless ideological fighting and resource hoarding, and third when a crazed anti-Communist nutjob decided that he had release a biological extinction event into the world so that he would have the ability to nuke China even more, years after the war had ended. He literally ended up hurting his "own people" more than China ever did.
There are so many examples of these themes cropping up and this article seems to just miss them, dismiss them or, honestly, might not have even played the games he's talking about.
Sure, you can say that the monetisation sucks or whatever but that's not really the point here is it. It feels dismissive of the work itself to just complain about some microtransactions while ignoring the actual body of work created.
Fallout 76.
In WV the nuclear silos are automated to continually produce nukes as long as the automated DEFCON system is at 1. The "President" (the crazed anti-Communist Secretary of Agriculture who is part of an elite secret society) eventually does it when he realises that the system thinks the giant mutated bats (which came from the systematic nuking of mining sites to produce a powerful ore) are a Chinese invasion.
The bats are all diseased and spread something called the Scorched plague which turns your skin red before eventually calcifying your entire body. It basically ends up wiping out the entire population of West Virginia.
Also looking back on it, it's a story about a disease that came from a bat wiping out a US state that was basically allowed to happen because of insane politicians. No real life parallels there haha (yeah I know it wasn't necessarily a bat, let me have this one please)
It's a lot better now in those last two points. Quests involve actual characters now and are great fun imo. The rebuilding is basically in the Wastelanders questline where you basically help do exactly that.
If you still have it you could always give it another go. It's still the same base game of course, but the additions to the world have felt pretty natural.
Yeah, a big part of potentially joining the Institute is all your previous family ties.
The main story is basically all about having to let go of your previous life and realise it's over before starting a new one.
The main character even says this at the end of the game.
"I hoped I could find my family. Cheat time. Make us whole again. The way we were. But now, I know. I know I can't go back. I know the world has changed."
Fallout 4 is heavily flawed. I remember being both amazed and disappointed when it came out but I still think the game gets heavily criticised in some weird areas where it truly doesn't deserve it. People just seem to think that so long as the faction leader doesn't sit and explain their faction in a 10 minute block of text then the writing is bad. Sorry Institute, but none of you fucks invoked Hegel so you're slapped with the big ol' bad writing badge.
This was part of the hype around Outer Worlds but it was incredibly socdem in its solutions. All of the happiest endings are when you get everyone to work together - and that leaves those soul-crushing corporations in charge. :liberalism:
We'll see if they change anything with their DLC but I really doubt it.
Now that Microsoft owns both, they can take it away from Bethesda. See, sometimes monopolies work!.
4 added some gameplay elements that I liked, such as settlements and redone Power Armor. But yeah, thematic elements, esp writing, definitely peaked with NV.
The treatment of the NCR is probably what sets NV apart from FO3 and 4. Like it's not in your face mustache twirling anti-communists, it's really you delving unto the inner machinations of a developing government body and finding the rotten ideological core underneath without the game doing dramatic overtures about it. And also the NCR is literally a lesser evil battling an overt fascist. It's great stuff.
lol no, the powder gangers are small tier, the game opens up to the four main factions when you get the platinum chip anyway.
