Bethesda has always fumbled the ball on the leftist slant, Capitalism exists where it likely shouldn’t yet and in general mocks the Cold War propaganda yet plays most Communist characters as though the propaganda is true, actually.
The series was always generally leftist, but it never really crossed the threshold into being a full Disco Elysium or anything. However, in the hands of Bethesda, it’s just a playground.
I swear, no one can properly mock fascists in any way that insults them.
The closest I can think of are orcs from Tolkein, and even then if I worry that if we starting calling white people and fascists “orcs”, they’d take it as a compliment too or I’ll just sound too much like a NAFO lib.
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So basically Elon Musk
Fascists have been comparing the races they don’t like to orcs for a while now.
Oh yeah, that’s another big one. There’s just way too much baggage to use orc/goblin/troll/etc to refer to chuds.
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In order to properly mock a fascist you have to use the Mel Brooks technique. Make them silly.
Fallout is an interesting case of tripping into a material analysis despite itself.
I think part of the reason modern Fallout games don’t resonate is because of a shift in focus in Fallout 2.
☢️ Disclaimer ☢️ I'm about to critique Fallout and all of its runty children, but it comes from a deep place of love. Proceed cautiously...
The greatness of the original Fallout was it’s relentless juxtaposition. Wandering around its world deeply reminded me of Percy Shelly’s poem Ozymandius. The incredibly kitszch pre-war civilization was muted because you would only catch glimpses and fragments in the ruins surrounded by the Wasteland. You could say the old world haunted the world and people. The bleakness of the setting gave a sympathy to even the “bad” guys, especially when many player choices revolved around the best of bad options and unintended side-effects. The people living in that world embodied a critique of the entire ideology that created the blasted-out world. The game embodied a ghost story.
Where its own analysis falls over is a shift away from Ozymandius and into more familiar tropes typical of post-apocalyptic/fall-of-civilization fiction. The focus shifted away from the juxtaposition and towards an analysis of the people that lived in those ruins. We no longer see the games as a critique of Hubris, but a critique of their world, and (increasingly) a critique of the post-war inhabitants. The pre-war civilization went from haunting to set dressing. It’s easy to point to Bethesda for this phenomenon, but (if we’re being really honest with ourselves) the problem started in Fallout 2. The game became a franchise, and its own lore began to eclipse the general irony. In the original Fallout the pre-war culture was as alien to the world’s inhabitants as it was to ours. Part of what made it work was the very little that was revealed in the bombed-out ruins. Now we have a fairly liberal (yes, even in FO2 and FNV) takes on the human condition, while the player has an encyclopedic knowledge of the pre-war world.
In a very real sense, where does the franchise go from here? Truthfully, nearly all post-apocalypse/fall-of-civilization fiction falls into this trap. Zombie fiction suffers from this phenomenon the most. In Fallout’s case, returning to the haunted nature of the old world might breathe new life. It lends itself to a mysticism and reverence by the people living among the ruins.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head. I’ve been saying that Fallout needs a reboot and universe reset for a while, too much of it is too far gone and has become a parody of itself.
Liberty Prime would be a better satire if it wasn’t, canonically, incredibly useful to saving the Wasteland. In lore it was meant to be an impractical boondoggle that cost so much money it fucked the American people over, but in game it’s a useful weapon of war used to kill fascists and take back a water purifier
Would’ve been a better satire if they’d taken the voice module out and drawn attention to how annoying the jingoism was, or if it didn’t even work at all and all it did was spout jingoisms
Literally what I was about to say. I actually think the original tweet isn’t actually that far off and this is sort of in the vein of the criticism that Star Wars kinda invariably winds up making the empire, and be extension fascism, look really cool.
Cause like here’s a hot take…giant 20 story tall death robots are fucking cool and metal as shit when they actually work.
It would have been better if it staggered along, getting increasingly wrecked by the slightly uneven terrain and small arms fire it was taking, then collapsed onto the barrier frying itself but overloading the similarly overengineered Enclave systems.
Also if there was a character who literally looked into the camera and said something to the effect of “lmao, Liberty Prime was built by the Enclave pre-war and only ever saw action against the successors of the very people who built it in the first place.”
In Fallout 3, Liberty Prime screams about killing communists and saving America while attacking the Enclave, which is the last remnant of the American government. Fallout 3 isn’t very good, but that part always puts a smile on my face.
on the other hand it’s the lamest, most annoying level in the entire game to actually play, so who’s to say if the robot is meant to be cool or a demonstration of prewar hubris
I was about to say, my entire thought process during the Liberty Prime Fight was ‘I literally have 12 mini nukes in my pocket, I could have done this entire thing myself without this WoW level sidequest bullshit.’
20 minute long walk through the least interesting portion of the map where every enemy you waste munitions on might not give you xp because the magic robot lazer might get them
and who can forget reloading if the robot gets stuck and the last autosave was all the way back at the beginning. also reload if dumbass companions get themself blown up by an exploding car at any point
Oh I totally forgot about the randomly detonating cars.
wow, cool robot!
to be fair, after bethesda got their hands on the series (and especially by FO4), any of the satirical anti-imperialist or anti-capitalist signifiers have basically been drained of any and all meaning, echoes of echoes of echoes. power armour is the prime example. Noah Gervais spends a bit of time talking about it in his 9 hour fallout retrospective which is a great video if you are interested in the series at all!
Will you believe me if I say Fallout 76 has based stuff in it?
I’m afraid not
Understandable, have a nice day
Shouts to having substantive capitalist critique right next to an ingame cash shop lmaooooooo
Something something Mark Fisher something
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Noah Caldwell Gervais posting is the highest form of slop posting
love how the cannibal human underground dwellers try to own the commies. buddy, broadcasting how fucking dumb you are isnt going to work
Smug Gamers belong in a gulag
