Fiery Actions

As videogames progress as an art and hobby, the level of how much a game lets a player express himself has increased. Awhile back I was playing through Fallout 3 (which I did not finish as the scenario described below freaked me out) and came across a mission that I could just not resist.

I blew up the town…

What had started as an innocent trip to the local watering hole soon turned into a life changing event. The whole thing started when a man approached me about leveling the shanty town of Megaton to the ground. Seems the residents hadn’t been too smart in building the town around an undetonated atomic bomb. For my part, all I had to do was place a detonator on the bomb and get out of Dodge. Easy right? It was. I was actually surprised at how no one noticed me placing the detonator on the bomb. Not even the Church of the Atom fanatics, who were worshiping the weapon at the time I placed the detonator, did not notice me. Detonator in place, I made my way towards Pennington Tower…

Fortified, the tower was actually the remains of an old high rise building. Inside, I soon found out, lived people of wealth who paid for protection and sanctuary from the Capitol Wasteland. I climbed to the top of the tower, stepped out onto a balcony, and was told to detonate the bomb. The horizon was suddenly filled with a blinding flash. Megaton was no more. I had become a murderer. I had blood on my hands.

Save.

Quit Game.

The destruction of Megaton made me seriously consider the action/ consequence system of Fallout 3. You see, I play games to break them; I play games to see what they are made of and then see how far they will let me go. The problem with my gameplay style this time was that I had gone down the road the developers of the game wanted me to. I had done something I would never do in real life. I had killed virtual people in the plume of a fiery mushroom cloud. My past actions lead me to this weeks question:

• Even though its just a game, when does a game go too far and if so, how far is too far?

Feel free to comment below.