Hey! The feral struggle for survival after the apocalypse can be fun, too!

Fallout: New Vegas's post-apocalyptic landscape can appear a rather uninviting place to spend an afternoon upon first glance. After all, the wasteland surrounding the city formerly known as Las Vegas is -- thanks to the efforts of superpowers to wipe each other from the face of the earth some 200 years before -- a place prevalent with skin-stripping radiation, scorching hot weather, scorpions the size of your head, wolves the size of Pavarotti, and cannibals only too willing to lodge a knife in your chest and their teeth in your cranium.

But, to focus only on these petty negatives is to miss the benefits abounding in its vision of the future. If we would but only take a step back, and remove our negative heads (not literally, and without the help of a cannibal), then we would recognise the many improvements 2281 holds over 2010...

5: A sprightly economy

You cannot walk anywhere or meet anybody in Fallout without them offering you work. Seriously, visit the local bar in the starting town and the perky landlord will practically throw herself at you with an offer. And she doesn't just want you to pour pints, oh no, but to negotiate with a local gang and fix her radio while you're at it. All this without so much as asking for a CV! Compared to today's recession-hit world of job cuts, this, my friend, is paradise.

And it continues throughout. Each new place you visit has something that needs doing and people overly eager to pay you to do it. Oh, and did I mention that each time you drink a coke (sorry, 'nuka-cola') you naturally gain a bottle cap; which just so happens to be the currency of the day. Just imagine how greatly improved life would be if, each time you drank a generic fizzy drink, you were one penny closer to buying another.

Of course, the abundance of jobs probably has something to do with the world's population having decreased by around 99%. But you win some, you lose some.

4: Fewer Elvis Impersonators

There are today approximately 25,000 Elvises around the world, according to experts, compared to only 170 in 1977 when Elvis died. At this rate of growth, by 2019 they will make up a third of the world population.

Well, not in 2281 they don't. The Elvises of New Vegas - a street gang called The Kings - are confined to a single tenement building. They may dress and talk like Elvis as well as the best of today's crop, but there are millions fewer of them. Also, given that this is hundreds of years in the future, nobody is stupid enough to believe 'The King' is still alive, and that one of the impersonators is actually the real deal. Of both these facts we can be very jealous.

3: Zero carbon footprint

There are no working cars, planes, or trains in Fallout's world; everybody walks everywhere. There's no mass food-production either; people farm their own crops or Brahmin (mutated cows with two heads). And there are no street lights, so you can gaze upon the perdy looking stars.

All this means you don't have to feel guilty about killing the planet with your wasteful western lifestyle anymore (leaving aside the small detail that nuclear warheads have already done far more damage to it than your personal radio ever could).

The exception, I'm afraid, is if you choose to have Rex the dog as part of your travelling party. A recent study revealed that keeping a pet dog is equivalent to driving 10,000 miles a year in a Land Cruiser, given the food they consume. Much better then to have Lilly, the blue, shades-wearing 8ft tall Nightkin Mutant, as your companion. There are no available statistics to trouble you about the harm she does to the environment.

2: Doing drugs and reading comic books make you a better person

Have you ever had a maths problem you couldn't quite tackle, or perhaps a person you needed to persuade who seemed immune to your natural charm? Well, in Fallout these things can be fixed quickly and easily with the aid of intoxicants or trashy magazines. For example, if your intelligence is low, simply take a Mentats pill and Einstein-equivalent brain-powers can be momentarily yours, allowing you to have a 'eureka moment' and swiftly persuade Alice not to murder her mother for being mean to her (no seriously).

Get addicted from taking one too many pills? No problem. Just head to the nearest doctor where they'll remove your addiction in seconds for a small fee. Or, better yet, take another drug to negate the original's effects.

All this substance abuse is, I should stress, completely legal. Indeed, the game actively encourages you to take more drugs by rewarding you with experience points if you inject yourself enough. If you have a moral problem with it, well, it's good to know you can gain similar effects from reading the equivalent of today's Spider-Man.

1: Improved community interaction

Deciding what to watch or listen to has become a chore in the 21st century. There is too much choice and too many bad programs strung out across too many terrible channels. In Fallout there's only one thing on TV: the megalomaniac owner of Vegas, Mr House, and most of the time there are just two radio stations; both of them essentially playing the same five songs on repeat, in every bar and building throughout the wasteland.

With no idiot-box distraction, conversation can flourish once more. Better yet, with everybody listening to the same thing, people are guaranteed to be able to join in on those all-important water-cooler moments the next day at work. No more: 'Did you catch EastEnders?' 'No, sorry, I'm a Corrie fan'. Now it's: 'Did you hear Dean Martin on the radio last night' 'I did! Several times' 'Me too!' 'Great! Say, do you have a date for the office Xmas party...?'

Oh, and to anybody who suggests water-cooler moments are a thing of the past, I put it to you that they are just about the only place in Fallout's world you can guarantee non-irradiated water. Yes, I have tasted Fallout's future, ladies and gentlemen, and it's one we can all embrace.

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