{"id":1153,"date":"2011-04-18T11:51:42","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T15:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/?p=1153"},"modified":"2011-04-29T10:14:39","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T14:14:39","slug":"9-5-fallout-new-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/9-5-fallout-new-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"9.5 Fallout New Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedigitalmachine.com\/images\/blog\/FalloutNewVegas.jpg?w=656\" alt=\"Fallout New Vegas\" \/><br \/>\nGaming has been such a rich experience for me, and my life has been better for it.  There are so many wonderful worlds in my head created by game developers and shared with my family and friends.<\/p>\n<p>But just like my moral objection to vengeance-fueled thrillers that play on people&#8217;s worst desire for vigilante justice, I don&#8217;t like useless gratuitous violence in video games.  It&#8217;s polluted the space that should be filled with wit and creativity.  I realize this places me outside the typical gamer demographic, and reduces my street cred.  Whatever.  It also makes it nearly impossible to indulge in gaming without some compromise.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Fallout New Vegas is rated M (Mature).  I decided to let Reiley play it along with me.  The following logic was utilized:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shared experiences are the best learning environment possible, and provide a way for a parent to teach morality lessons without sounding preachy.<\/li>\n<li>The game provides a wealth of these morality choices.  Do you trust everyone at first, or assume a defensive posture to protect yourself?  How do you know when someone is being truthful?  Do you exact revenge on those who betray you or commit atrocities?  If so, how far do you go?  What are your rules about innocent victims in harm&#8217;s way?  How much effort do you put into helping them?  How much assistance do you ask from others willing to help you?  etc.  You don&#8217;t get these kind of philosophical challenges from any non-interactive entertainment.<\/li>\n<li>The game was designed so that it could be completed using a stealthful pacifict approach.  How far can a pacifist approach be taken effectively?  How much harm do you allow to yourself and others before changing tactics?<\/li>\n<li>The world of Fallout New Vegas is rich and detailed with many different environments.  But in the end, when all is said and done, a large part of the game is played as a violent first-person-shooter.  Let&#8217;s be honest: that&#8217;s not really a healthy moral environment (apologies to just about every gamer out there, but it&#8217;s true).  Mom got sick of the excuses and finally declared &#8220;no head shots&#8221;.  :><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As an avid gamer, sometimes rationalization gets the better of me when it comes to tolerance of useless video game violence.  But the sea is wide and full of adventure; don&#8217;t assume you have to leave your morality at the arcade entrance, there is a wealth of choices out there.  Game on with your passions in place, my friends.  :><\/p>\n<p>More notes&#8230; the first Fallout came out in 1997 (just a little behind Reiley), and contained tons of the elements in the latest incarnation, including S.P.E.C.I.A.L. character attributes, lockpicking, traits and perks, addictive stimulants, Karma, multiple quests, recruitable NPCs, and tons of morality choices.  What a classic.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, the Fallout New Vegas rabbit hole is nearly bottomless&#8230;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gaming has been such a rich experience for me, and my life has been better for it. There are so many wonderful worlds in my head created by game developers and shared with my family and friends. But just like my moral objection to vengeance-fueled thrillers that play on people&#8217;s worst desire for vigilante justice, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/9-5-fallout-new-vegas\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">9.5 Fallout New Vegas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,25,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pc-gaming","category-reviews","category-words-of-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9M0Zg-iB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2009\/a-paxing-we-will-go\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":0},"title":"A-PAXing we will go&#8230;","author":"m","date":"September 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"PAX 2009 flew by like a sonic jet. Dan and I met out in Seattle again this year (we did it once before in 2007) for the Penny Arcade Gaming Expo. In my quest to find work, I picked up a pretty nice Macbook Pro so I can do iPhone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/p_2048_1536_AADAC96D-5AEA-4C30-8F11-FB2541430426.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2004\/try-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":1},"title":"My Vegas Angle","author":"m","date":"February 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Say you start betting at $1, then $2, $4, $8, $16, and a max bet of $32. You would have to lose six times in a row to \"bust\". The chances of that are 50\/101 - NO WAIT I just looked up the rules and, this sucks, roulette only has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Chatter&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Chatter","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/chatter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":232,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/reiley-and-i-play-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":2},"title":"Reiley and I play war","author":"m","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday we decided that Reiley was old enough to play a Real Time Strategy war game with me. She and Wren have been playing multi-player Age of Empires ][: The Conquerers for a long time now, and they're very skilled at map building and playing in a friendly mode. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Consumption&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Consumption","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/consumption\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/post-pax-mike-is-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":3},"title":"Post-PAX Mike is back!","author":"m","date":"August 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend Gary has been waiting for PAX to end, so I will get back to reality and get my head out of the PAX cloudcover. It was worth it... here's my PAX post... if you're not a gamer, \"move on\"... zomg pax so r0xx0rz!! ITSATRAP!! OK so we were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2004\/cause-im-comin-ta-git-ya\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":4},"title":"Oh brother Dan, where art thou?","author":"m","date":"July 24, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Had a great time last weekend with my brother - my brother, my suffering brother, come out to the Volga! We got in our road trip, jam session, all-night-gaming, high-stakes-casino-play, lan party, studio recording time, night out on the town (fort lauderdale in this instance) non-stop party all in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2002\/keep-em-comin\/","url_meta":{"origin":1153,"position":5},"title":"nutha LAN party","author":"m","date":"August 6, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"At Jason's again, what a host! This time it was me, Chau, Jason, Frankie, Zac, and a special guest appearance by Abhi! Frankie showed us how to play Counterstrike and Warcraft III. At least how to get dominated. More tronning. There was some Eternal Darkness, Descent, and Tribes ][ here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1230,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions\/1230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}