29.10.2012 Two weeks with Resurrection or how I learned to stop worrying and love the wasteland
Let me begin with a short explanation of my involvement with Resurrection. Many, many years ago, on a Czech Fallout fan site called Mad Brahmin, there was a forum. There, we talked about the usual things discussed on such forums - different ways to play Fallout, how much we are looking forward to Fallout3 (which is how we used to call Van Buren), and stuff like that. Then someone got an idea that while we're waiting for Fallout 3 we should pass the time by creating Fallout 2 mods. One of the projects created was Fallout 2.5 (which was later renamed to Fallout 1.5: Resurrection). As a fallout-obsessed teenager I obviously wanted to take part in this and so I became a member of the Fallout 2.5 team. At that point we were mainly working on coming up with ideas. I took part in drafting up locations, quests and the main story - basically the design stuff. But the development was going very slowly and after a few years I decided to leave the team and focus on certain other aspects of my life. Since then I helped out a little bit with some translations, but nothing big. Well, and now I'm back as a beta tester.
It's been almost two week since I entered the world of Resurrection. At first, I had my classic, cheery Fallout2 approach. I was getting ready to be nice and help innocent tribals and friendly residents of small cities, oppressed by evil bad guys. I was getting ready to gradually expand my possessions through fair trade and looting of evil guys who really deserved to die. I was getting ready for a naive fairy-tale-like story about saving the world from an evil scientist, who wants to detonate a nuke just because it's in his evil, evil personality. But Resurrection wasn't like that at all. The atmosphere was much darker. It's a ruthless world, which reminded me of Fallout 1 and Mad Max. The main story is mysterious and interesting, and as such does a great job at motivating you to keep going. But it's the small details I enjoyed the most. The original Fallouts are known for giving you a lot of freedom in choosing how to complete the quests. Resurrection accepts this tradition as a challenge and goes a little further.
As a whole, this game world has really affected me. At the very beginning I got into the role of my character, and thanks to the excellent way the details were handled, I managed to stay in that role throughout the game. I stayed in the role even when my character started to slowly move away from my personal values. In Resurrection, everyone is just trying to survive. It's a world full of distrustful communities, which I would call paranoid had I not seen that it's justified. It's a world where you can't see good nor evil, only various shades of gray. In order to survive, I had to adapt: I lied, I stole, I killed innocent people, I forced poor people to give me money, even though I knew they didn't have any to spare. But this isn't my confession. No, the change was too gradual and too voluntary, there's no way back now. Now, when I look back at things I've done, I can clearly see they were wrong. Yet I regret nothing. I know that should I find myself in that situation again, I would do the same once again. No, I didn't go insane. I see it more like becoming tougher to survive in the desert of this postapocalyptic world.
At first I really tried to play as a good guy. Sometimes I could only choose between two evils, but even then I tried to pick the lesser one. Then one day I met a doctor who was interested in one of my companions. Or more precisely her organs. I wanted to refuse, of course, but then I heard how much money he was offering in return. Oh, god, it was a lot! In the end I refused - I'm trying to be good, after all! However, later on that day I caught myself revisiting the situation in my head. I was imagining the things I could buy with all that money. I wanted it so bad! And it was then I realized just how deeply I entered into the game.
Resurrection is simply an experience, though it will be a different experience for everyone. It's a world which every fan of the original Fallouts should visit.
Seto