After having learned about Fallout 3, then hearing all the subsequent controversy surrounding this game, I knew at some point I'd have to see what all the buzz was about and play the first Fallout game. So I have yet to play Fallout 3, but for now I have just finished Fallout and am currently downloading Fallout 2.
Maybe I'm just a little bias in favor of most games that were released on PC in the 90s. This is kind of like my own personal golden era of CD-ROM games. And this game hardly disappointed me. The learning curve was a bit long. It took me a lot of getting used to; the combat system with its turn based mechanics and action points was very frustrating at first. After getting used to it though, it seriously became so fun for me. I usually hate any turn based types of games (yuck, Final Fantasy), but the makers of Fallout manage to pull it off anyway and make into an interesting strategy game that includes positioning, and multiple attributes that affect your rate of success such as intelligence, perception, strength, agility, etc.
The story itself is fairly typical in the sci-fi genre. It's set in a post apocalyptic wasteland where there is radiation, mutants, religious zealots, technology purists, and then you, who lives in a protected vault whose water supply is running low and it is up to you to scour the wastelands to find a water chip in order for your vault to replenish the water supply.
Complimenting the story, is incredible ambient music (I'm searching for the music files right now), authentic and consistent atmosphere (yet diverse locations), caustic humor (really, there are so many hilarious moments in the game), excellent dialogue and background story, and lots of sidequests.
The graphics aren't what most younger people are likely to appreciate. They definitely got the wholl 256 color scheme going on. And I suspect there is a lot more they would have liked to do with the game if they could have. But the game has so much that if you can't appreciate it for that reason alone, you probably wouldn't like it. I miss games that seemed to use the medium of games as an instrument for storytelling. There are many cliches to the story of Fallout. But it's still an amazing story nevertheless. I might have liked some cinematics that included more of my own character, but I used this shortcoming to kind of come up with my own story for my character, why she was so qualified to find the water chip, and what ultimately happens to her in the end.
Another quick thing I'd like to mention is how marvelous and gratuitous the violence is in this game. You can blow people's arms off, cut them in half with laser beams, or melt or burn them using plasma weapons. Heck, you can even kill children if you want to. Which leads me to my next thing.
In Fallout, you can kill almost every single character in the game if you so desire. The game is incredibly open ended. Sometimes it's just better to kill certain people, but other times, it's better to use your brains and manipulate and double cross them instead. You can use subterfuge in some areas and disguise yourself, or you can go in guns blazing and slaughter everyone. And you can travel to different areas in different order as well. Granted, there are obvious areas in which are more difficult than others to deter you from going to them early, but the choice is still up to you. And at the same time, you can't just be careles about your choices because you have a time limit before your vault runs out of water. And since traveling between places takes time, you have to sort of make a plan on how to proceed. It forces you to be thorough in many areas as well because you don't want to have to backtrack later to follow up on things you may have missed.
And yet the time limit isn't so bad that you're panicking to get things done either. You're still afforded a decent amount of time to explore and investigate.
A huge thanks to Doppel for being patient with me and answering my hundreds of questions about this game. I can see why he is such a fan of this game. Now I go on to play the next one.
i had a few questions about the game. when you are traveling in that grid map view, how the hell do you know where you are going and how do you get out of that view?
and do you have any tips for someone coming back to the game as i nearly completely forgot how to play it.
I might get Fallout 3. I have to get my 360 first.
Right now though I'm just starting Fallout 2 and it's hard as hell. There's a lot more to do in the beginning than in Fallout so I'm getting a little overwhelmed. I think I may go back and recreate my character. I'm trying to fight all these geckos in the meantime and I can't even find a gun anywhere. Anywhere!
In regards to Fallout 3, I really just want to reserve my judgment until I actually play the game.
I'd be very interested in playing that. Interplay was one of this kick ass game companies like Westwood and Origin that always made good games.
As for Fallout 2, I think it's exactly like the first with the exception of a few added features. I asked you in a PM that you never responded to if in like Fallout 1, do I have a time limit in Fallout 2.
Fallout 2 is pretty huge compared to the first one. Sometimes it's a little frustrating since it's hard to keep track of all that I need to do. The pip boy doesn't manage quests as well as I'd like it to.
About Fallout 2 having the same things as the first one, i agree, but what i was referring to (to my preference of the first one) actually involves Fallout 2 having "too much", that is to say "too much sillyness" and i feel it draws away a bit from the overall depressing mood the first one had. Its not really a huge point, but one worth mentioning i feel.
They do make a lot of overt attempts at humor, and a lot of references to jokes in the first Fallout. And yes, perhaps the overall feel of the game is less depressing. I can't quite put my finger on it though since everything else is pretty much the same. For one thing, I don't even know yet who or what is the main antagonist. I just know they're these metal-clad guys who fly sophisticated looking helicopters.
Being a descendant of the Vault Dweller also isn't as interesting as being someone directly of the vault. And I'm a little confused about the timeline as well. It doesn't seem like more than a generation has passed since the events of Fallout 1, and yet this village that was founded by the Vault Dweller behaves as though they've existed for many generations, already with it's own unique culture and traditions. And they speak of him as an ancestor as if he actually wouldn't have just been their grandfather. Can you clarify any of this for me?
Good review. I might go out and pick this up. I LOVED fallout 1 and 2 a LOT.....but this ones got some stuff going around about it being obivion with guns.....not sure what to think of that since oblivion was an amazing game.
I wasn't too impressed with the village either. I know these were tribals, but considering the context of the whole world, they looked too primitive. It makes it harder to believe that my character can do any kind of science/engineering stuff.
And I was thinking about what you said about all the humor in the game detracting the the depressing sort of post-apocalyptic feel of the game. I actually think that the game remains serious when it counts. Like that scene where those huge fuck off guys gun down the farmer and his wife for threatening to leak information, that scared the crap out of me. And now I'm about to infiltrate the Enclave base. This should be interesting.
Yeah, thats scripted i believe, but Fallout 2 still has awesomely horrific stuff like that.
Its just that, even most of those serious encounters and stuff, well they are still parodies and inside jokes and such. Like i said, its not that big a deal, but "getting" a reference to a typical scene in a certain movie or a certain monologue or whatever is fine, after a while though i could not help but roll my eyes a bit after yet another one and another one, effectively chipping away some of the believability of the setting and things happening around you. It became a bit too lulzy to be depressing or scary or dreaded or doomed, etc,... at least imo.
I think you describe that pretty well actually. You're right, the inside jokes and references are relentless at times and sort of grind on. As if every game developer wanted their opportunity to give their own shout out to a particular thing.
What I'm worried is if they're gonna go even further with that kind of stuff in Fallout 3. Although their motives for referencing the first Fallout game will be totally different than the motives found in Fallout 2. I've seen other franchises taken over by different companies and in some attempts to remain true to the original, it would go horribly awry.
I'm still thinking about purchasing Fallout 3 this month even though I already bought Left 4 Dead. I'll let you know what I think of it. I always knew I wanted to play the original Fallout games before trying Bethesda's.
I really need to reemulate Fallout again and play it...
That would be funny.
Emulate DosBox through Wine to Emulate Windows with DosBox to emulate Dos to play Fallout. Double emulation. Good thing it's an old game.
I emulate to get it into Windowed mode, actually, and sometimes sound bugs out, DosBox fixes that.
But as far as I am aware, there is no Linux version of Fallout, although I should check that out...
There is a Linux DosBox, but I heard the XP DosBox emulated through Wine actually works better lol...
DOS Box is nice for using window mode. I've just been playing it on Gametap though. I'm sure some of you are probably sick of hearing me talk about Gametap, but the game works perfectly for me through that.
Never even visited Gametap before.
I miss those old days searching bins filled with old games though, you barely have that now. (at least where i live)
OT
Hehe, yeah, I remember that too. Back then they also had stores like Software Plus and Egghead Software that sold software exclusively.
Gametap, however it works, basically installs the game on your harddrive and all the other necessary patches to make it work on most current machines. Couple things I'll admit I don't like though. One is you can only access the game through Gametap itself rather than just having it downloaded, installed, and loaded independently on your machine. Second is that it relies on an internet connection to even play. This may not be an issue most of the time, but sometimes I am in a place where I have no wireless but I still want to play Fallout, or some other game from Gametap and I'm unable to. I've actually been meaning to contact them about this and ask them why if I'm downloading the game onto my harddrive can I not play it off my computuer alone.
This is still rarely an issue though. And since so many games are totally free, and all you do is create an account, I think it's a small price to pay. Fallout 2, however, required a gold membership which was 60 bucks a years. At first I never thought I'd upgrade my account, but I saw all these other 90's games I've been dying to try like X-Com, Planescape, Baldur's Gate, and a few others. They even had some Wing Commander games on their not long ago, but they've been taken down recently for some reason.
Most of those games are easily dowloadable via torrents and they won't require an internet connection.
And I know, patches, some torrents come packed with patches and even more... like this Fallout 1 torrent I'm dling right now.
Gametap probably has adjusted versions. It's all cool but Fallout 2 is not worth $60 a year, it's just way too old for that, lol.
Most might be, yes. But I get tired of searching for games via torrent then waiting two weeks for some to download since they just have a single seeder. Plus I have a DOS Box disability and often have a hard time getting older games to work. Origin games are particularly notorious for not running on newer systems.
And obviously, yes, paying 60 to play Fallout 2 is way too high. But if you think I got it just to play Fallout 2 then you're silly.
Maybe I'm just a little bias in favor of most games that were released on PC in the 90s. This is kind of like my own personal golden era of CD-ROM games. And this game hardly disappointed me. The learning curve was a bit long. It took me a lot of getting used to; the combat system with its turn based mechanics and action points was very frustrating at first. After getting used to it though, it seriously became so fun for me. I usually hate any turn based types of games (yuck, Final Fantasy), but the makers of Fallout manage to pull it off anyway and make into an interesting strategy game that includes positioning, and multiple attributes that affect your rate of success such as intelligence, perception, strength, agility, etc.
The story itself is fairly typical in the sci-fi genre. It's set in a post apocalyptic wasteland where there is radiation, mutants, religious zealots, technology purists, and then you, who lives in a protected vault whose water supply is running low and it is up to you to scour the wastelands to find a water chip in order for your vault to replenish the water supply.
Complimenting the story, is incredible ambient music (I'm searching for the music files right now), authentic and consistent atmosphere (yet diverse locations), caustic humor (really, there are so many hilarious moments in the game), excellent dialogue and background story, and lots of sidequests.
The graphics aren't what most younger people are likely to appreciate. They definitely got the wholl 256 color scheme going on. And I suspect there is a lot more they would have liked to do with the game if they could have. But the game has so much that if you can't appreciate it for that reason alone, you probably wouldn't like it. I miss games that seemed to use the medium of games as an instrument for storytelling. There are many cliches to the story of Fallout. But it's still an amazing story nevertheless. I might have liked some cinematics that included more of my own character, but I used this shortcoming to kind of come up with my own story for my character, why she was so qualified to find the water chip, and what ultimately happens to her in the end.
Another quick thing I'd like to mention is how marvelous and gratuitous the violence is in this game. You can blow people's arms off, cut them in half with laser beams, or melt or burn them using plasma weapons. Heck, you can even kill children if you want to. Which leads me to my next thing.
In Fallout, you can kill almost every single character in the game if you so desire. The game is incredibly open ended. Sometimes it's just better to kill certain people, but other times, it's better to use your brains and manipulate and double cross them instead. You can use subterfuge in some areas and disguise yourself, or you can go in guns blazing and slaughter everyone. And you can travel to different areas in different order as well. Granted, there are obvious areas in which are more difficult than others to deter you from going to them early, but the choice is still up to you. And at the same time, you can't just be careles about your choices because you have a time limit before your vault runs out of water. And since traveling between places takes time, you have to sort of make a plan on how to proceed. It forces you to be thorough in many areas as well because you don't want to have to backtrack later to follow up on things you may have missed.
And yet the time limit isn't so bad that you're panicking to get things done either. You're still afforded a decent amount of time to explore and investigate.
A huge thanks to Doppel for being patient with me and answering my hundreds of questions about this game. I can see why he is such a fan of this game. Now I go on to play the next one.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
i had a few questions about the game. when you are traveling in that grid map view, how the hell do you know where you are going and how do you get out of that view?
and do you have any tips for someone coming back to the game as i nearly completely forgot how to play it.
Right now though I'm just starting Fallout 2 and it's hard as hell. There's a lot more to do in the beginning than in Fallout so I'm getting a little overwhelmed. I think I may go back and recreate my character. I'm trying to fight all these geckos in the meantime and I can't even find a gun anywhere. Anywhere!
In regards to Fallout 3, I really just want to reserve my judgment until I actually play the game.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
As for Fallout 2, I think it's exactly like the first with the exception of a few added features. I asked you in a PM that you never responded to if in like Fallout 1, do I have a time limit in Fallout 2.
Fallout 2 is pretty huge compared to the first one. Sometimes it's a little frustrating since it's hard to keep track of all that I need to do. The pip boy doesn't manage quests as well as I'd like it to.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Being a descendant of the Vault Dweller also isn't as interesting as being someone directly of the vault. And I'm a little confused about the timeline as well. It doesn't seem like more than a generation has passed since the events of Fallout 1, and yet this village that was founded by the Vault Dweller behaves as though they've existed for many generations, already with it's own unique culture and traditions. And they speak of him as an ancestor as if he actually wouldn't have just been their grandfather. Can you clarify any of this for me?
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
And I was thinking about what you said about all the humor in the game detracting the the depressing sort of post-apocalyptic feel of the game. I actually think that the game remains serious when it counts. Like that scene where those huge fuck off guys gun down the farmer and his wife for threatening to leak information, that scared the crap out of me. And now I'm about to infiltrate the Enclave base. This should be interesting.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
What I'm worried is if they're gonna go even further with that kind of stuff in Fallout 3. Although their motives for referencing the first Fallout game will be totally different than the motives found in Fallout 2. I've seen other franchises taken over by different companies and in some attempts to remain true to the original, it would go horribly awry.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
That would be funny.
Emulate DosBox through Wine to Emulate Windows with DosBox to emulate Dos to play Fallout. Double emulation. Good thing it's an old game.
But as far as I am aware, there is no Linux version of Fallout, although I should check that out...
There is a Linux DosBox, but I heard the XP DosBox emulated through Wine actually works better lol...
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
I also just discovered that Wine has windowed mode on it already...
Gametap, however it works, basically installs the game on your harddrive and all the other necessary patches to make it work on most current machines. Couple things I'll admit I don't like though. One is you can only access the game through Gametap itself rather than just having it downloaded, installed, and loaded independently on your machine. Second is that it relies on an internet connection to even play. This may not be an issue most of the time, but sometimes I am in a place where I have no wireless but I still want to play Fallout, or some other game from Gametap and I'm unable to. I've actually been meaning to contact them about this and ask them why if I'm downloading the game onto my harddrive can I not play it off my computuer alone.
This is still rarely an issue though. And since so many games are totally free, and all you do is create an account, I think it's a small price to pay. Fallout 2, however, required a gold membership which was 60 bucks a years. At first I never thought I'd upgrade my account, but I saw all these other 90's games I've been dying to try like X-Com, Planescape, Baldur's Gate, and a few others. They even had some Wing Commander games on their not long ago, but they've been taken down recently for some reason.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
And I know, patches, some torrents come packed with patches and even more... like this Fallout 1 torrent I'm dling right now.
Gametap probably has adjusted versions. It's all cool but Fallout 2 is not worth $60 a year, it's just way too old for that, lol.
And obviously, yes, paying 60 to play Fallout 2 is way too high. But if you think I got it just to play Fallout 2 then you're silly.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs