Natural Born Killer

Fallout 3 has a strange morality. But it's no stranger than my own morality slide, which seems to be edging ever closer to compassion fatigue. Basically, I don't care anymore... most of the time. Good, neutral, evil, armed, unarmed, mutated, sexy (it happens), legless, smiling, Dogmeat: it's all the same, one step closer to a quieter, safer Wasteland. You may call that desensitisation, but I call it survival. Within the parameters I've set for myself - kill everything, no compromises - mimicking Halle Berry's Oscar speech every time I bury some well-meaning NPC just isn't feasible. Still, I do begin to worry at points: is this dissociation from the pain, mutilation, and death I'm inflicting upon Bethesda's virtual world indicative of an imminent descent into chloroform, swastika tattoos, and earlobe collections? Am I gradually warming to the idea of wearing Megan Fox's skin like a pashmina shawl?

Not really. I did dream about it, though - the killing, not Megan Fox as a pashmina shawl. I partook in some astral Fallout-esque activities and awoke, genuinely reeling in horror and remorse. And the next day, I was relieved to discover that I agreed when my wife suggested that it would be more humane to capture and release the wolf spider on our wheelie bin than stomp it into glutinous nothingness. It would seem the world outside and beyond my 22-inch monitor still holds more emotional weight than the Capital Wasteland. At least, that was my hope as I strolled out of Tenpenny's apartment and continued my rampage. His bodyguard fired a few rounds and then decided his salary wasn't worth dying for a dead man, but I managed to fatally clip the poor guy in the back before he reached the elevator, thereby scoring my first Tenpenny Security Uniform.

I proceeded downstairs, and immediately tossed a Frag Grenade in the general direction of Gustavo, Tenpenny's security chief. It didn't kill him, but his shins were eager to relinquish their relationship with his thighs when I pulled out my Chinese Assault Rifle. I waited until the dead of night, when most of the ground-level residents would be snoozing. As with Megaton, this made my job infinitely easier. The Sledgehammer, yet again, proved itself to be the most effective instrument in the careful process of edging a seven-hour nap into the "eternal" timeframe, and while a few did awake mid-bludgeoning, I didn't find it too difficult to pretend the gurgles and screams actually emanated from a particularly nasty case of sleep apnea. ("Did you hear Betty last night? Snored so loud she lost her head! HA!")

The Tower's mid-level was the most challenging section by far, and even then, it was all because of one man: Herbert Dashwood. The retired hunter not only woke up just as I had finished carving his boozy mistress, Susan Lancaster, into at least five pieces, but also revealed the combat shotgun he'd been storing under his pillow. His surprising tenacity in combat very nearly got the better of me, but I managed to escape with a bit of frenzied swinging. My brief sojourn in Tenpenny town ended, rather fittingly, I think, with the shrieking bigot Lydia Montenegro tearing down the lobby stairwell, and me in hot pursuit. She winced at a few of my on-target shotgun blasts, but kept on searching for the big, handsome, hairy saviour she'd never find. Getting bored with the chase, I stopped, extracted Tenpenny's sniper rifle from between wads of chewing gum in my backpack, and popped a hole in her head. A perversely satisfying silence settled throughout the building. And I immediately booked a phone session with my therapist.

It's at this point that I decided to fast-travel back to Northwest Seneca, which isn't too far from Arefu. And upon arrival, I met the Regulators. Having pondered their question for approximately 1000 words, I briskly kill them and, given my knowledge of their cheapass operation from the first game, I assume I'll probably never see them again. I head north, towards Paradise Falls, the shopping mall-turned-enclave for the Wasteland's most despicable faction: the slavers.

I now feel a strong affinity with the slavers, raiders, and other freebooting factions whose general gameplay purpose is to beat the bumfluff out of new players until they learn the ropes. In fact, when I was roaring through Megaton, I was called a raider more than once, which was sensible enough: I'm behaving exactly like one. I suppose I shouldn't be astonished, then, to discover that the slavers don't know quite what to make of me.

Paradise Falls is introduced to the player in much the same way many Fallout 3 settlements are: in a mandatory quest-giver conversation. In this instance, the guard wants me to bring him a few slaves before he'll let me inside. Naturally, I fill his torso with lead. His friend attempts a rebuttal to my argument, and I detonate his head before he has a chance to pull the trigger. These are the first kills that make me truly happy - not only are they unequivocally evil targets, but I'm finally crossing paths with my righteous Fallout 3 character. He, too, killed all the slavers in Paradise Falls. Of course, he was doing it to liberate slaves and remove this particular blight on the Capital Wasteland, while I'm doing it because I'm a death machine. He was on a mission to deliver sugar and spice, whereas I seem to be wandering aimlessly, looking for my next groin-shot. And so, I'm bringing evil to the evils.