FALLOUT 4: WACKY FUN AND A SOBERING, BLEAK VISION OF HUMANITY

I’VE SPENT 50 hours of the past week combing through the torched bones of a previous civilization (ours, roughly) in the irradiated wasteland of Boston. Fallout 4 launches today on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and the latest game in Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic role-playing series goes farther than any of its predecessors towards mastering the odd paradox of comedy and drama.

The key difference between the Fallout games and a series like Mad Max is that the game takes place in an alternate universe where every piece of 1950s culture stuck. When your character emerges from an underground bunker, 200 years after a nuclear holocaust, the world outside remains trapped in the decaying wreckage of post-World War II Americana.Riding the hope of the atomic age, every car in Fallout‘s timeline runs on a small nuclear reactor, and every song in the game’s expansive soundtrack brims with mid-century optimism.