Who would have guessed a nuclear fallout could be so depressing? I'll concede that, during such a catastrophic event, most people would die and the tortured living would be crazy with the smell of death enveloping them. I'll even admit that buildings designed to withstand a 4.0 shake on the Richter scale may not be able to stand strong during a 40 megawatt blast. Yes, shades of gray dominating the landscape seems like a plausible consequence for setting off a massive bomb. But does it have to look so darn uninviting?

I have been playing Fallout 3 the last few days and I feel like I am the unlucky survivor of a digital, yet still quite powerful, blast. A large part of the appeal of playing games as a whole, and specifically open world games, is the joy in discovering new places that not only provide enticing gameplay opportunities, but offer a visual treat as well. It's why I so eagerly traipsed through Stilwater and Liberty City this year, roamed the lands of Albion twice, and place Nippon at the top of my virtual vacation resorts. I search for diversity, beauty, and exhilarating new areas... and Fallout 3 doesn't have any of that.

Everything looks identical in post-apocalyptic D.C. One town melds into the other, each awash in a sea of indistinguishable crumbling buildings and a gray palette that has never heard of the word "pigmentation." Fallout 3 is an ugly game, almost too ugly to play. RPGs are an escape, a way to experience the world in a consequence free environments. To interact with people in a way you would never dream of in real life and see sights mere humans have not been privy to.  Yeah, the game captures what the world would be like after the bomb hits, but is that really a good thing? There is no imagination, no life, no reason to explore in Fallout 3. 

I am not a stupid man. I understand that, to create a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you have to eschew the majority of the color scale. I knew going in that this wasn't going to be as warm or enticing as Nuts & Bolts or Oblivion. The sheer lack of imagination is startling, though. I am not impressed with a strict representation of what our world is destined to look like. They could create a virtual cow intestine or factually correct landfill and I wouldn't want to experience those either. Fallout 3 has become a monotonous, arduous experience. Apparantly, a perfect recreation of human destruction makes for a lousy game world. 

I have issues with the shooting (the worst aspects of First Person Shooters and Role Playing Games in one tight package!) and the character interaction (three choices, none of them what I want to say), but it's the bleak aesthetics that's keeping me away. Is there a reason to keep trudging through this desolate landscape? Or should I shelve it for a world actually worth visiting?