Mojave to Virgina

Hello again. I’m popping my head out from underground. This doesn’t feel like a Matador piece, though it would certainly get more traction there. This feels like a James has some shit to say about people who should know better piece, so it goes here.

Life’s a mystery. I’m trying to be someone else, and that’s a difficult process. My inability to write about politics without becoming superheated wears on me.

I especially enjoyed Ms. Dahvana Headley’s Beowulf retelling called The Mere Wife. It’s probably my favorite read this year, but I’d have to check to be certain. The Criminal team released a standalone book in the series called My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, and the end result is exactly as heartbreaking and ruthless as I expect from Criminal.

That Lawrence Arms greatest hits compilation bangs and wallops me with memories. My friends in Drug Church will release their new record Cheer next month, and I think it's great. I'm biased in vocalist Kindlon's favor, but you knew that already.

I returned to my Fallout: New Vegas hole this year, and it means that I pay more attention to what critics say about the series. In this case, two of them (one from Kotaku, one from Waypoint) got on a high horse about Fallout's use of nukes. I went, wait, I played at least one game and I know how to read media, and had a different opinion.

Mx. Alexandra’s argument that Fallout 76’s use of nukes as griefing mechanic represents a shift away from Fallout’s values with regards to nuclear weapons does not convince me.
1. New Vegas allowed the player to buy nuclear weapons from a former soldier.
2. New Vegas also includes a challenge to nuke 20 animals.
3. If anything, by requiring multiple players to get different pieces of a nuclear launch code, 76 is more responsible with their use of nuclear weapons than New Vegas.
4. Hell, committing atrocities for minor gain is in line with Fallout’s aesthetic, gallows humor, and universe.

Professor Kunzelman’s belief that Fallout 76 is irresponsible in their portrayal of nuclear weapons appears to be disingenuous.
1. If 76 is singularly irresponsible in its portrayal of nuclear weapons, the result, an irradiated crater where powerful mutated enemies emerge and land or topography is destroyed according to the whims of chance and physics, it follows New Vegas’ post-game states: The Courier’s Mile, Dry Wells, and The Long 15, where players see first hand the apocalyptic wreckage of a nuclear blast zone.
2. Yes, the best loot is dropped there. That’s what gets the player in the door. The more a player looks around the levels in Courier’s Mile, Dry Wells and The Long 15, they see the skeletons of people destroyed by nukes and the devastation being so bad it even destroyed their victims’ shadows. Fallout shows the player what nukes do and how they effect the people they don’t manage to kill. Fallout 76 appears to continue this tradition.
3. In previous game-ified instances of nukes, in Starcraft there’s maybe a crater that sticks around on the land, but that’s it. As for Modern Warfare 2, it's a literal perk you can choose to increase your kill streak. It wipes people off the map and ends the round. In Fallout, you must walk into it. You must witness the devastation written onto the land and onto the mutated beings that somehow survived the blast. The after effects of the blast literally poison the player’s character. I'm not sure anyone can look at the bottom two pictures and get the impression that the designer is glorifying the top one.