Original Fallout Game Review

War... War Never Changes....

Now it is time to go back into time a little bit and delve into FallOut 1, and 2. I didn't get to tactics because, well, I'll get to that in a second. I realized most of my reviews were of good games or movies (or at least of things I felt were such) This time we're gonna change it up.

First, a little history. Fallout, developed originally by Interplay, came out in 1997, it's an RPG depicting a post apocalyptic world (think Terminator without the murdering robots, just a bunch of overpower people with too many nukes to use) and set them off resulting in total nuclear war in the 1950s.

Fast Forward to the 22nd century and you're basically the "savior" of your community having to rescue them by foiling super mutant plots, aiding other NCPs to acquire karma and experience points, and finding water so either your vault (no.1) or your village (no. 2) won't die.

I'm going to try to review both games since they are very similar in most respects.

First, general thoughts.

For an RPG set in 97', it had a lot of immersion with its many characters and dialogue choices that you see today by Bethesda works of Oblivion, and FallOut 3 (they were the perfect people to do it by that point). But with that said, onto the hate.

Point and Click System: Almost never playing a pure point and click game, with few rare excepting over a decade ago, it took me a long time in the 1st Fallout to get the hang of it, and without any real instructions coming with the game (NOTE: I bought the 3 pack re-release for PC that included 1, 2, and Tactics) I was frustrated for a good half of the game before I warmed up to this game mechanic.

VATS but not?: A vague idea of VATS, which basically lets you focus an a specific body part to shoot, is here in these games but most of the time I can't get it to work. By surprise once in a while I'll get it to appear, but more of the time I can't get it to show up, so I'm shooting blindly most of the time I feel. Some kind of oversight in the design it would appear to me.

Lost... lost.... Lost...: The one thing that's a major drawback to the game is it's lack of ability to recall where you are in your mission except for some very vague and non-helpful bullet points in your PipBoy. Unlike FO:3, and Oblivion, you might miss that ONE clue or ONE bit of story that will lead you to where you got to go, but if you miss it, you can be screwed for a long time, pretty much until you're down to talking to every NPC in the freaken game, and stumble upon what you're suppose to be doing.

Random Battles: We're still in the era of random battles in 97 and sometimes the groups you stumble upon in the wasteland will SLAUGHTER you and CHOP YOU INTO BITS 5... TIMES.... OVER before you even his the ground with a -90 hit point damage from their LASER GATLING GUN. Before you're even lv 10. I mean, jeez Louise. You can't avoid these battle. You're only hope is to run away, to the edge of the screen, to escape, but if they have a rocket launcher, you might as well reload the game.

Your Group NPCs: Sometimes they work. Sometimes not. You have some degree of control over them like in FO:3 (in 2 you can actually manipulate their weapons and armor, trade, all that good stuff without the BS, helps if you are carrying lots of stuff) but sometimes they might pin you in the room, cause stepping over a bed or a chair to get out of your way, or to get out of the doorway which we're not all stuck in because of this dumb[insert word choice here] does not compute in 97'.

Point Allocation system: Same as seen when assigning points to your character in modern interpretations. However unless you go heavy into one area or another, you are screwed. This is more a live and learn mechanic. Over time you can get better at other things, but right out of the gate, you better be able to blow your super-mutants apart or sleaze your way through everything. OR hack computers. Whatever you choose.

Overall Impression: This game is VERY dated in its design. Although you see plenty of good game mechanics that are transferred over to FO3, the game design flaws and hiccups described above get irritating enough that I stopped playing my way through No. 2. Didn't even bother with Tactics (some don't consider Tactics cannon anyway) I just couldn't deal with it sometimes and would have to step away from it for a time, which would lead to having to remember story elements (see above). Reloading for the 10th time in the span of an hour because I got nuked by a super mutant for the 9th time SUCKS, Or the NPC blocks the doorway and you have to reload. This game makes you appreciate the present incarnations just that much more. If you're looking for some solid old school stuff similar to FO3 then this is something you should pick up, around $10 I think in the stores or on Steam (although it might have gotten pulled from shelves because of a licensing issue between Interplay and Bethesda, so you might be out of luck at the stores). But if you're too hooked up on todays' video game freedom, you might not enjoy this so much.