Month: October 2019

The Most Destructive War in History, Casualties:”0”

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“War. War never changes”, this is the very first line in the popular video game Fallout 4, and although some people may pass it off as just a simple opening, the line rings true. Wars have been fought for millennia, all for the purpose of accomplishing a task or a goal. Dethrone a king, take over some land, get a more advantageous position in a country. Yet what happens when weapons of war, surpass the limits of which humans are willing to face.

The cold war. Though this war did not hold the most casualties, it without a doubt can be considered one of the most dangerous wars mankind has ever experienced. There are two things that must be considered when it comes to the cold war. What happened, and what could have been.

My first source, will be Kurt Vonnegut, who was sent off into WWII at the ripe age of 20, was captured as a POW, and witnessed firsthand the bombings that America ordered. Vonnegut had seen war, saw its ugly rearing face up close and personal, and lived to tell the tale. Yet he wanted to tell it different from history textbooks. 

My second source, though unconventional, will be the popular video game franchise, Fallout along with the thrilling alternate history that It had to offer. In this universe, Russia bombed America during the cold war, nukes were sent around the world, and every world government collapsed, leading to a post apocalyptic world flooded with dangers. Although I’m pretty sure this never occurred, this alternate story can prove to be a good source, to view what effect the cold war could have had.

What Occurred

Kurt Vonnegut explores the true events of the cold war, in his short story, All the King’s Horses. The basic premise of the story is that a high ranking military official must play chess against a Chinese leader. The catch being that his men were his pieces, and he the king. Right from the beginning, Vonnegut sets up real stakes that mimic what problems the cold war caused.

The antagonist is a communist guerrilla leader, who has a large Russian official at his side at all times. This character was added in order to display the casualties that the cold war was causing. When the Colonel’s wife asks Pi Ying (the communist leader) how he could do this to women and children, and starts to exclaim “For the love of god” but is quickly cut off. Pi Ying retorts with “Is it for the love of God that Americans make bombs and jet planes and tanks?” This character proves that the cold war has a lot of casualties, just none when it comes to the American and Russian troops.

Vonnegut spins a thrilling tale, filled with high stakes, and effective allusions to the cold war. The short story took a simple 15 minute read, but was capable of shifting my view of the cold war, and American Russian relations.

What Could have Occurred

Although Fallout is a video game, and quite literally has no historical stance because it is a fictional world. I still believe that it can be viewed as a source of information about the cold war. The fallout universe occurs in a world where Russia sent missiles to America, and destroyed modern civilization. The entire world is in disarray, people are no longer unified, and everyone must fight for their own survival.

This world offers a view into what could have happened during the cold war. If any nuclear missiles had been sent, it could have had a disastrous impact on society and the environment. With an arsenal of weapons that Russia and America held, destroying the earth would have been child’s play. Yet the game explores this alternate universe, in order to make people appreciate the facade of a lack of violence during the cold war.

Both sources create a compelling story about the cold war, but Vonnegut’s short story is a bit more accessible to most people. War is a common practice for humans, yet no matter what you call it, war will always have the same effects.

Is Borderlands 3 worth it?

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BorderLands 3

After creating Borderlands 2, one of the more popular video games of this decade, Gearbox (The company that created the game) decided to spend a large amount of resources, attempting to create a sequel that would be able to crush its predecessors. With that goal in mind, a long 7 years of development passed, with the fanbase continuously growing, and their expectations only growing larger. Fans wanted brand new content, yet also stubbornly asked for the exact mechanisms that made Bordlands 2 a masterpiece of this generation. Yet, with the odds stacked against them, and time slowly ticking away, Gearbox have quite literally knocked their new game out of the park.

As someone who has sunk in hours upon hours of my own time into Borderlands 2, I can 100% guarantee that this game has completely blown it out of the water in almost every single way. Yet I am not here to discuss the positives of a game that critics adore. I would much rather discuss the pet peaves that would deter anyone that wants to game, if they don’t love the series enough to ignore them. Sadly the list can be made quite extensive.

My very first gripe with the game, is the unskippable cutscenes. At certain points in the game, it is important to have an animated section in which we are able to get a better understanding of the characters and the story. But the whole point of a video games is to take you out of stories, compel the player to explore a world, with others means such as art and music, yet Borderlands 3 completely ignores that. If anything the world building is a best shoddy, and the worlds that you explore seem quite shallow compared to the complexity of Borderlands 2. Worst of all, is the simple fact that you can’t skip the cutscenes, making the game seem extremely repetitive.

The second problem I hold with the game, is how they manage to suck the life out of the characters. The roster is a cyborg, a lady who can summon a mech, an old man with the power of holograms, and a person with magic powers, yet they suck the soul out of every character. They replaced gameplay with cutscenes, and did not allow you to find out about the character on your own. All the people in this universe have the same recycled stories, and it feels extremely difficult to differentiate them from each other. I would be able to overlook all these problems, if they didn’t overlook a simple detail, and it’s that the character say the exact same thing when you enter the game, every time. They gave the characters one voice line, and expected me not to notice.

The third problem, and the final one that I have found, is the slowness of the actual game. It is extremely slow to progress, and forces you to accomplish tasks that aren’t all that necessary. Not only is the progression slow, but various aspects of the game feel purposely slowed down in order to extend the length of the game. One of the most popular selling points of games nowadays is how many hours of gameplay the game holds. But this system feels extremely dishonest, and missions are purposely slowed down, and your progression is hindered to meet the correct numbers needed. 

Aside from the problems that I have listed, in reality, the game is actually quite fantastic. It’s still something that you can sink a lot of hours into, and the core gameplay is as good as it always has been. Do not take my opinion for hatred of the game, I just believed that some negatives needed to be told of a game that is being non-stop praised by every critic out there.