This week's post is going to be pretty short, but is actually about my absolute favorite type of game: one's with apocalyptic settings. While this subject ties in with all four of my previous posts, there is still a special place in my life for a game that explores the fantastical possibility of the world, as we know it, ending. Whether the game focuses on war, aliens, zombies or a sudden virus outbreak, I am completely on board 100% of the time.
There's just something about our social construct being completely wiped clean and civilization being forced to start over, leaving everyone with a million different questions, that I love. It is a theme that really makes you think about the way our society is run and what changes will occur in the future. If the world ends, do we live as savages? Re-build everything the exact same way and hope, by some miracle, that history doesn't repeat itself? Or does humanity strive for utopia?
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| Image Credit: Stefan Stefancik |
The best survival games are generally able to give players a pretty good representation of what it's like to rely on our most basic instincts. While these games play on the more psychological aspects of having to survive, that is one of the first things you would more than likely lose in reality. How long can you keep your humanity when the world is being overrun by zombies and your self-preservation instincts kick-in over your charitable nature?
Civilization has come so far from the hunter/gatherer days, creating, modifying and overthrowing systems of government, that it has separated us from the most natural parts of ourselves. While we have pretty much escaped the "food chain", in its original sense, a big theme throughout movies, books and games surround the day that mother nature finally gets her revenge for all those fast-food wrappers thrown on the ground. And on that day, I will be forced to accept the fact that my hundreds of hours playing Fallout does not mean I am prepared in any way for a world without Internet or running water.
However, whether you are getting your survival know-how legitimately from the scouts, Bear Grylls, or you are totally winging it with video-game survival tips, at least we are once again learning the natural things our bodies forgot long ago.
Again, I apologize for this week's post being as short as it is, especially since it is on one of my favorite topics. Still, I want to hear what you guys think about this theme in games or anywhere else. Do you guys enjoy playing apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic games and what are your favorites? What do you guys think about the "end of the world" scares that we seem to have every few years or so? I know a lot of families with actual shelters under their houses or on their property for when the world "ends", which I don't really know how to feel about. Would you guys consider them smart and prepared or fanatics with tinfoil hats? Either way...
I hope everyone has a wonderful day and thanks so much for reading.
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