The gaming groundhog sticks his head from his hole, goes to Blockbuster and sees: F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (360).

Most people associate F.E.A.R. with Alma, the creepy little girl who gets bloody footprints everywhere and sets shit on fire. But F.E.A.R. is really about one thing: slow motion head-shot porn. I probably won’t cover this quickly approaching game, but if I did, the article would probably go something like:

3:05 – Shot a guy in the face, awesome!

3:05 – Yeah, shot his face in the ass, woo!

3:06 – Hey, did it again! Ow!

…

8:05 – Shot dude face.

8:06 – Ditto.

8:10 – facshot

Well, that’s covered. I give it a C! What else?

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (360) – You’re a chick in a bikini killing zombies. I’d rather be a zombie in a bikini killing chicks. But at least this is weird and Japanese.

Deadly Creatures (Wii) – Now we’re talking. One on one fights between real life animals: Rattlesnake vs Tarantula; Gila Monster vs Wasp. Don’t let a rainy day get between you and sadism. You + Me + Dead Animals = Wiiiiiiiiii!

Flower (PS3) – Oh, you’re like this beautiful flower in a pretty field and you shoot pollen everywhere and it, like, blows around to other flowers and makes new flowers! And that new flower is you, and you’re like, so beautiful. And you bloom and the sun is like “Yeah, awesome!” And then like, a little girl comes and puts her sweet, soft fingers on you and you say “Yaaaay! Wait…Hey! Oh god, NO! Stop pulling, oh JESUS, I’m ripping! AAAAAGHHHHHHHHH. AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!”

Flowers, little girls and animals? Spring is near, it’s nearly here! So there will be a lot of new stuff to cover. But since we have a few days until the shit hits the shelves, let’s take one last deep whiff of winter, in the form of Fallout 3. [Keep in mind, this will not be a video game review in a critical sense. If you want to know what is good or bad about Fallout 3, check out Rick Rucker’s excellent review here. If you’re up for a rivetig personal tour of the game, read on! —Ed.]

*Press Start*

A light flickers on and “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” begins. “I just want to start a flame in your heart.” There’s a plastic hula dancer on the dash of a bombed bus, toys in the seats, and a sign says “Brighter Future Under Ground!” Get it? Get it?! Then we see a bombed DC, a big robot with a gun, and Fallout 3!

“Blood has been spilled in the name of everything from God, to justice, to simple psychotic rage.”

“But war, war never changes.”

What? Did it always have huge gun-toting robots and super mutants?

Ah, finally! Some real information. I was born in a vault underground! No one ever enters, and no one ever leaves!

Holy cow, my blood is all over the screen and I’m a crying baby! A doctor asks if I’m a boy or a girl while looking at my privates.

Jesus, how embarrassing. You’re supposed to be the doctor, asshole.

“Welcome to escapist fantasy, where your penis is so small, it might qualify as a vagina!” At least now I know why I want to destroy this world.

Anyway, the game asks me to pick a gender, so I choose “Male”.

Liam Neeson is telling a lady that he has a son. Holy shit, Liam Neeson is my dad. He says he and my mother have been discussing names, and what do I think of “Blank”. Ooh, I get to fill it in! I can be whoever I want. I need to compensate for this whole penis issue, so I’ll be Pole Johnson. Next I can choose my race and alter my face. I make myself African American, which should give me at least a +12 to penis size. But now my name isn’t right. I back out, add a “De”, and “DePole Johnson” is born. Perfect!

My mom says I look “strapping.” That’s more like it! Everyone is looking at me with pride. My mom is so impressed, she has a heart attack and dies.

Now I’m in a nursery, and a black man is telling me to walk to him with Liam Neeson’s voice. Wow, Neeson has the whitest voice ever. “I know you don’t like it when daddy leaves you alone, but you need to take care of yourself for awhile.” At least he walks the walk.

I’m in a play pen, but I refuse to be caged! I open the door. Hmm, what’s up in this room? A book on the floor says “You’re Special”. Damn right! Oh ho! Using this book I can give myself Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. I already have 5 out of 10 in each, but only 5 points to spend. Crap. I should have 10s in everything, but I’m faced with a huge points budget deficit. It would make too much sense to give myself cat-like agility; I’d rather have cat-like intellect! I also decide to pair super high strength with dismally low perception; dim-witted and freakishly strong seems like an awesome way to go through virtual life, son.

Dad’s back, and he wants to read my mom’s favorite passage from the bible. It is: “I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Even her bible passages were overbearing. Now dad wants me to go play with my little friend, Amata..

Whoa, nine years later!

And it’s my birthday! I’m ten! I get an awesome rocket wrist machine thing…and a work assignment? What a shitty birthday present! There’s a little girl staring at me. Am I wearing pants? I look around but I can’t see my legs. Ah, I can now see myself from the third person, and indeed, I wear pants! Phew!

Me and my pants approach the little girl. Her name is Amata, and she’s the Overseer’s daughter. She got me a Grognak the Barbarian comic! Damn, that’s pretty cool for a little girl. Especially one whose daddy is the boss of the vault. I read the comic and gain +5 to melee weapons! Note to real life self: read more comics.

Hmm, an old lady gave me a sweetroll, that’s kinda cool.

Whoa, some douchey kid named Butch wants to take my sweetroll! I tell him to go “Soak his head” whatever that means. I’m a ten year old with the intellect of a tabby. I don’t know how to cuss. Crap, I don’t know how to punch either! He’s kicking my ass! If only I had a melee weapon. Before I can get my hands on one, the adults break up the fight.

Jesus, I only invited jerks and girls to my birthday. It’s like Congress in here. This party sucks. I’m supposed to go meet someone named Jonas in the reactor. But first, a sexy white lady tells me she used to change my diaper and wants to give me a present.

She wants to give me…a poem? That’s like giving a kid a toothbrush on Halloween. Oh well, maybe it’s dirty, lessee:

“Gray walls, impenetrable steel.
Suffocation! Condemnation!
Little hands groping in
Subterranean uncertainty.
Mommy? Daddy? Am I dead?
Nay! Nay! Reborn into
Purifying fluorescence!

A face emerges, strong and
Male.
Father to me? Father to all!”

Wow, I take it back, that’s an awesome thing to give to a ten year old. But before I can go ask her to interpret it for me in private, I’m called down to the reactor room to meet someone named Jonas.

Perhaps he has a melee weapon.

Jonas is a black guy with an even whiter voice than my dad. He’s like a Dave Chapelle imitation of a white guy. He plays coy, and is like “What are you doing down here, you rascal?” I tell him to “Can it.” Jesus, I have to get out of this vault. Everyone talks like assholes, myself included. Jonas is yammering, but all I hear is “Blah blah blah present”

Present? My dad shows up and asks if I’m ready for my surprise. I ask him what it is…and he gives me a BB gun! I immediately shoot him in the face with it. He doesn’t care! My dad is tough!

I run up to Jonas and shoot him in the head with the BB gun until he passes out. That may sound wimpy on his part, but it took about 40 pellets in the face from point blank to drop him. I don’t think I could take more than nine or ten.

Everything fades out, and six years pass.

I have to go take a test, ugh. Aw yeah, I can punch now! I’m gonna go beat up Jonas! I kick his ass in front of a patient (I guess Jonas is a doctor). Then I leave his office, walk around a corner, and see Butch and his friends picking on Amata. Butch offers to show her what a tunnel-snake is.

I think snakes are cool and am tempted to wait for Butch to show us one, but he has a beatdown coming for trying to steal my birthday sweet roll. I show him what a broken nose is. He and his friends run off, so I follow Amata to the classroom where I actually take a test. As far as exams go, this one is alright (An actual answer to a question: D. Throw hot tea in your grandmother’s face), but I’ll spare you the details.

Three more years pass. Amata is waking me up. I like this future already. Now she’s ranting about her father’s henchmen; they’ve killed Jonas. Damn, beat me to it! She says I have to run. I guess my dad escaped from the vault, and now her dad wants to kill me. Blah blah blah…and then she gives me a gun! “Thanks, Amata. I’ll only use it as a last resort, I promise.” Yes, the first resort I’ll use on your father will be my fists. Then I’ll use the baseball bat I just picked up. And then my last resort will be this pistol.

I leave my room and immediately run into Butch! He says his mom is trapped in her apartment and is under attack from huge roaches. I calmly say “Let’s go help her.” I kill the roaches attacking Butch’s mom. He wants me to have his tunnel snakes jacket. I put my gun away, take the jacket, and then I beat Butch to death in front of his mom. I may not be a smart man, but I know what humiliating is.

I find a room where Amata is being interrogated by her father and a security guard. Oh yes. Let the pain begin. I use the last of my bullets on the security guard, and Amata runs out of the room. Looks like it’s baseball bat o’clock for Mr. Overseer. He goes for a police baton. Wow, he’s quick! He gets in some good shots, and his defenses are sturdy. I finally break his guard and his right arm with my trusty slugger. Then I hit a homer off his face.

It’s a deathblow. He spins low and sprawls out on a cot next to the wall. How convenient! I gleefully step up on the cot and stand over his face, then I firmly press my balls down on his forehead. Could this moment be any sweeter?

“Oh…god. What are you doing to my father?” asks a shaky feminine voice from somewhere behind me.

I don’t say anything; I think it was a rhetorical question.

I turn around and face Amata. I try to put a brave face on the situation, but then I realize I’m still holding the baseball bat. Shit. She asks again, “Oh…god. What are you doing to my father?” And then again, quickly “Oh…god. What are you doing to my father?” Awkward!

I leave, but I’ve only gone two steps down the hallway when I realize I’ll need the Overseer’s key card to escape. And he probably has some money.

I walk back in and she’s still crying. I pass her and quickly grab everything in the Overseer’s inventory; no point in extending her misery. She did, after all, give me the comic book that taught me to kill her father. The sobbing increases and I realize my error. I took his clothes; he’s naked. I should probably give those back. I am such an idiot! I search through my things and find his suit. Oh, these have some nice stats. +5 to science? Glaven!

…

In my snappy new duds, I head into the Overseer’s office and open the secret tunnel under his desk. Security reinforcements arrive just in time to take pot shots at me, but I’m already too far away to hit. I get to the room with the vault door, and hit the switch, but just as it opens, Amata runs in with tears on her face. “You didn’t have to kill him!” she cries. Oh ho, the Overseer isn’t the only one I left an impression on. I walk to her and say “I’m sorry, Amata. But I had no choice.”

And then I dramatically turn and run down the tunnel to freedom, and the Capital Wasteland.

The End

Email Joe Dodson at hankpazzo@exiledonline.com.

Read more: fallout 3, video game, Video Games, Joe Dodson, Entertainment, Video Games

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