What was so good about the first 2 Fallouts anyways?

I found the Black Isle Fallouts at a store for cheap and tried playing the first one for a while, and it felt like an exercise in everything that was wrong with Western RP Gs...

The combat is really slow, spending so many turns closing the distance between you and your enemies. I wouldn't mind this so much if your character could fight worth a damn, as he's pretty much helpless at level 1, and I can't level up when I keep wandering into high-level enemies that I can't avoid.

Where are you even supposed to go at the start? Your Vault is depending on you for their own survival, and they don't tell you where you could start looking for a water chip? This just leads to you wandering aimlessly through the wasteland as the time limit ticks down, and that's only if you're lucky enough not to run into any deathclaws as a level 1 weakling.

How did this game get two sequels and three spinoffs, again?

Because people enjoyed it and it sold?

Nah, couldn't be... =d

360 Gamertag: Electivirus. 3DS friend code: 5412-9983-8497. PSN ID: Electivirus. PM me if you add me on any.

I can understand the complaints about the combat. It's not really difficult at all, as long as you know a couple of tricks about building your character, but it's really bare-bones and not that satisfying when it comes down to it.

...but you could have bothered watching the intro movie, ya know? They tell you where you should go searching for the water chip at the beginning.

They did? Well, the vault that they mentioned turned out to not have one, so I came to a dead end.

Of course it's not there, but your point was that they don't mention to you where you should search for the water chip which is.. a moot point.

Honestly, asking around in Shady Sands should give you a decent idea on the major life centers in the Wasteland, go there, ask around, and you should be able to find a trail fairly easily.

Yeah, I remember going there, and I remember going to a bigger town, but I came up empty there too. I mean, I tried escorting some merchant across the wasteland, but we were ambushed by deathclaws along the way.

Well, it's obvious you wouldn't like the game if you come into it expecting an FPSRPG. But, since it isn't one, you should try and look at it for what it is— a turn-based semi-tactical open-world RPG with a lot of item variety, and a creepy Big Bad. So... yeah.

Though, I suppose it's not for everyone... but it's just stupid to find it unfathomable that anyone would like it.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."

People like it for openness, truly different situation resolutions for different types of characters, good atmosphere with just right mix of depression and sarcasm, your actions affecting the world...

I can understand that such things are not priority for everyone, though. Heh, I could use more direction and less sandbox, actually.

Never understood JRP Gs, by the way. Which is not to say that they are bad - just not something I find appealing. I prefer to play my own character with the personality chosen by me, and getting a fixed protagonist does not seem to be appealing. Heh, it took me 1.5 years to appreciate even Mass Effect because of that, until I trained myself to regard it as a cool movie, not as game

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

What are you talking about? Mass Effect is a western RPG where the player character's appearance, personality, and actions are dependent entirely upon the player!

To be fair, it doesn't give you alot of options. I don't play alotof RP Gs, but they usually don't give many choices for appearance and personality is pretty much good/bad/neutral, not really much difference anyway.

I have the Fallout Trilogy (1, 2, and Tactics), and I've only played 1, but I didn't see what was so mind-blowingly awesome about it that makes Fallout 3 and New Vegas vastly inferior in comparison. It's not a bad game, but I don't think it aged well.

I do notice a few things in the newer games that were carried over from that one, namely how easily it is to break the game; tag Gambling, get that skill around 100%, go to a town with a slot machine, hold the 4 key (and quickly after that, hold 1), and you've found a reliable source of mass income. High Luck might also help, but I dunno.

Shepard's alignment is up for the player, but personality is pretty much defined. Or, at least, defined much more strongly than I'm used to. Plus the inability to know exactly what my character is going to say/do when picking a dialogue option. It does give a general idea (and even this often turns out completely different from what I've had in mind), but nothing more than that. I can't get rid of the feeling that the character is acting on their own, that they are not mine, so to say.

But, again, it is nothing but personal preference

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Previous Bioware games (and Dragon Age) had what the character was going to say in the dialogue choices. When you chose them, it's what they actually say. In the Mass Effect games (and possibly in the upcoming Dragon Age 2), what exactly Shepard is going to say isn't shown until you choose a dialogue option, but the gist of it is shown.

Mass Effect was also the first Bioware game where the player character actually speaks; in the other games, when you chose an option, it would go right to the other characters' response. I remember that Jade Empire was going to have spoken PC dialogue, but play testers thought it was too redundant, so it was taken out.

Oh...sorry about that.

edited 6th Nov '10 1:44:37 PM by Videogamer07

Pretty sure Beholderess already knows about how the dialogue system in the other Bio Ware games works.

I can't speak for everyone, but what drew me in was the sheer scope of the things you could do in the game. There's the single, overarching plot, but the amount of things you could do on the side to get to it was mind-boggling, especially because this was an era when Dev Teams had to think of pretty much everything that a player might want to do. Fallout 2 amplified this, augmenting it with strong characters and more morally gray areas (though not as grey as New Vegas. Fallout 3 was a bit too black-and-white. Still damn awesome though), and improved the already pretty good writing and added some genuinely hilarious moments ("I'll get you on my next savegame!" springs to mind, along with the sandwich option when you reached Necropolis in the first game) . I will agree with anyone who says the combat is average though. It's always been the lowest point of the game for me, since its entirely dependent on stats. If I'm standing in front of a mole rat with a shotgun and unload a pair of shells into its face, it should die, not survive and keep hacking at me until I fall over dead.

edited 6th Nov '10 4:51:15 PM by Legionnaire

Against all tyrants.

I won't lie. I thought Fallout 1/2 sucked, especially with the stupid time limit and shitty combat.

Half-Life: Dual Nature, a crossover story of reasonably sized proportions.

Pretty much what he said. It's so. Damn. Open. The humor and atmosphere are delightful. The combat's... meh-eh-ehhhh... but serviceable after some growing pains on the part of your character, but that just pales absolutely compared to the atmosphere and humor, all the little things you can find if you go out of your way, the people you get to meet, Dogmeat...

i. hear. a. sound.

The time limit made sense; Vault 13 is running out of water, and its citizens will die if you don't get the water chip. If it's that troublesome to you, there are mods to get rid of that time limit, but I heard that there's one other long time limit (it goes until a few in-game years later, I think) that can't be removed.

(Yes, I realize that the combat will still be an issue, but I don't know if there are any mods that change it.)

edited 6th Nov '10 4:56:07 PM by Videogamer07

^There's a 'Super Mutants Find Vault 13, Everyone Dies' ending, which was a couple hundred days and then extended to several years in later patches, and a 'Good Ending for all' time limit, which was basically 'After X Days this village is destroyed by Super Mutants and you get the bad ending for it, but the game continues.'

I got that one on my first try :(

Against all tyrants.

I got the trilogy too and I'm kind of bored of the first two and I've barely even started. The combat is just so freaking sluggish. Despite its flaws, at least Fallout 3 kept me interested in playing in it from the beginning. Fallout was probably revolutionary for its time, but yeah, it hasn't aged well.

edited 6th Nov '10 6:24:46 PM by Scisless

I expect the OP is someone who isn't old enough to have lived through the age of older turn-based rpgs, where patience with the turn system was mandatory. Fallout's turn system is sluggish by today's standards, but not worse than any other turn-based game of its day. More importantly, within those limitations the games let you do a LOT in combat. All the different weapon types had various advantages and disadvantages, you could target any body part for specific and powerful debuffs or bonus damage (with corresponding over the top gore), you could yourself suffer from similar body part debuffs, and there was plenty of tactical management of action points, ammo types, and perks. The games were amazing for their time. I still replay them every once in a while... but then, I've always enjoyed slower turn-based games with high combat depth over faster games with low combat depth.

As for the whole 'deathwalkers at level one' thing... as others have noted, that's part and parcel of an open world design. If you pay attention, you can find clues that will lead you from place to place, especially in Fallout 1 which has a fairly obvious sequence of towns to visit. But they're not going to hold your hand and prevent you from going somewhere 'out of order' if you want to. If that's not your kind of thing, you shouldn't be playing a sandbox game in the first place. Lord knows there are enough linear railroad games out there (hi, Half-Life 2) to cater to those who want more guidance.

(Last edit, promise.) Oh, and if you're having trouble fighting critters at your own level, giants rats and the like, you probably designed your character too non-aggressively. Pile some points in strength or or a relevant weapon skill and fighting equal opponents won't give you a great deal of trouble unless you crank the difficulty up. Trying to fight without the stats or skills to do damage is bound to be difficult, and you shouldn't play a diplomat/scientist weakling type of character unless you're prepared to actually suck at combat.

edited 6th Nov '10 6:48:10 PM by Karkadinn

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

I tried out Fallout 2 once. I didn't like it, because in trying to figure out what stat combination worked for me the best, I had to go through that stupid beginning dungeon over and over and it was terrible.

Funnily enough, I got the farthest in the game with a 1 Intelligence retard character.

I 100% agree with you with the occasional discrepancy between what the dialogue options hint and what Shepard actually does. Those are annoying as hell.

However, I have yet to see a WRPG protagonist without some semblance of set personality. More often than not, most options in game will require a player to be fearless, determined, crafty, and insatiable. The very nature of progressing through a plot demands it. I don't see a difference between Shepard and any others in this regard.

Well, I've never wanted to play a character that did not possess those qualities, so that is not a problem.

Still, the difference is noticeable for me. Shepard has very particular mannerisms, figures of speech, quite a lot of minor defining traits. I pan pick any random phrase and immediately understand if it is something Shepard could say or not. But I guess that is pretty subjective.

Good thing that in Fallout 2, non-combat characters actually can avoid combat and still reach whatever objective they had in mind.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common