Be Excellent To Each Other

By which point the game's a bit boring, surely?

I much preferred the earlier stages of the game, where every single encounter is dangerous. And then the middle stages of the game where the worry of running out of ammo meant you'd go on shedloads of cattle drives to score Pancor Jackhammers off the random encounters so you could sell them for ammo.

I end up like this every time I play it. I really need to experiment with other character types...

All this talk is reminding me how much I miss it. I'll have to buy it again. I couldn't get past the mutant base at the end though, I just wasn't strong enough.

How was Fallout 2? Was it as good?

Better. Much better. More of the same but much, much better. And bigger. With more variety.

There was much more of it, without any plateaus or dips in quality, yeah.

Mmm platypus dip...

It depends how late it comes. Sometimes being able to do that to those bastard mutants who up until recently were shredding you instantly every time you saw them makes the repetition of stalking through the base executing them all marvellously cathartic. Also until the first time I'd tried something similar, I'd always gone for a smarmy, weedy smartarse or a sneaky, fast head-puncher. I tend to go in extremes in RPGs simply because having many average skills seems like a bit of a waste.

I'm playing Fallout 1 to see what all the fuss is about.

So I walk out of the cave at the start (having taken multiple turns to kill rats), and it seems any direction walk in eventually results in a scorpions that are bigger than me killing me.

When does it get fun rather than cheap? Or am I missing something stupid?

You're not missing anything. It's rubbish.

It does start off very poorly, admittedly. If I'd first played it now instead of several years ago, there'd be about a 65% chance I'd have just uninstalled it immediately and given it away when the very first thing I had to do was kill a bunch of rats. Plus if your character's not got any fighty skills or a lot of endurance, the first few bits are very unfair.

It takes a little time to get into it (plus the first few places you'll probably visit are pretty boring, although offering to lez up with the mouthy girl is quite amusing. I wonder idly whether there's a similar opportunity to come onto a male NPC if you're gay....), and to hurry things along I recommend specialising in small arms or melee/unarmed fighting early on - you simply don't get many big or energy weapons until later on, and being crap at all the fights gets old fast. Plus, once your skills go up a bit, you'll start to turn the tables on monsters and raiders who previously were kicking your arse, and the crippling and bullet-riddling animations make this rather satisfying. But the start is annoying.

Hey, it takes a little while to warm up, offering its version of the classic rat-killing opening that almost every RPG ever features. If you only played the opening bit of Oblivion, you'd think that was an entirely dark and gloomy dungeon-crawler, populated only by crappy goblins. Give it time.

i wished it was, no dungeon crawlers anymore

I'm always suspicious of games where I have to play through crap bits to get to the good bits...



I always hate RPGs having rat killing openings it's represents so much of what is wrong with the industry. But I can forgive it that as it was quickly over. My biggest issue is that, when I finally got outside in Oblivion I could see at least 3 exciting things to explore, a crypt, a camp, a city, a lake, a forest. But Fallout takes me to a brown map of hills I can wander around till I die.

Do I just need to keep reloading till I stumble on something before a scorpion kills me? Or did I miss a bit where I was told which direction to head? I like exploring maps, but I'm not sure I can be arsed to if doing so it's a case of reload and hope.

EDIT: But aye, I can see glimmers of what the game could be, so I may give it a second chance.

Fallout is more about the people you meet and the stories they have. It has really good quest writing in my opinion. You actually felt like you were helping a poor farmstead beat off a set of hired guns, or damn them through siding with their rivals. That sort of thing. The environments were a bit samey admitedly, but you eventually get sucked into the world through the sheer consistency of vision and the clever scripting. It does start slow, but I found exploring fun for the Wild West style towns you wander.

Me like.

All totally valid criticisms, and all things that (hopefully) the new one will fix, which is something being largely ignored by legions of fanbois.

But you are missing something. Go east (right) - you're advised by the overseer in the intro to look in Vault 15, and that should be marked on your map to the east as a green circle. Also, when you find a location it will appear on the right hand side of the map screen next to one of the red buttons. Clicking on these buttons will make you head in the direction of the corresponding location.

Generally, if there's an option to ask someone for directions, I'd select it. It usually automatically adds a location to your map, as mooching about exploring is pretty dull in fallout. It doesn't help that the random encounters in the desert are often a total waste of time - a bloke you've already talked to three times with nothing more to say, a bunch of bandits or creatures who couldn't hurt a fly, or, my personal favourite, "you almost fall over". Great, thanks for letting me know that I stumbled while traversing a mountain, there.

Aha! Thanks Sinister. I did miss that and thought that I was at the green circle and needed to walk away from it, so kept heading left/west.

Well my criticism is held for a bit then till I try playing it whilst not being an idiot.

The sound's a bit stuttery on mine, so I couldn't work out what the guy in the intro was saying. I'll give it another bash tonight.

This is one of the reasons I always put subtitles on in games where it's an option. Thankfully, it usually is.

Hoho! You're lucky it was just scorpions that got you.

Fallout isn't that good really.

Hello lensman! And why don't you think it is? I'm just setting out on my first Fallout journey, so would appreciate a different viewpoint.

It's been a while, but I can recall being stupendously bored with the nebbish, goony atmosphere of the thing, and thinking 'this is what people are so mad over?' Also the combat is boring and frustrating and the companion AI is thick as fuck.

What would you suggest as an alternative?

The companion AI is indeed a bit crap in Fallout 1 - it's much better in 2. It's also configurable, so you can set "rules" for your companions as to their distance from you, their response to different situations (when they should use burst fire, for instance, or when they should run away and heal) and their weaponry.

However, the AI in fallout 1 doesn't need to be that good, as you don't really need companions for most of the game anyway.

Oh - and "the combat is shit"? Pfft.

Take an ounce of mushrooms before you play?

What's "nebbish"?

Like a troller, but at sea.

Ha ha, yes I must be trolling.

I meant alternative games. You're not exactly being very constructive.

What's "nebbish"?

I dunno? Play what you want, I was just stating an opinion.

That makes even less sense, then.

Fair enough then - as you were.

*EDIT* I hope you're not offended if I just completely ignore you, though.

Sorry, I guess I meant 'nerdy'. My you guys are really welcoming!

Ah. Well, that it is! I think that's an occupational hazard with all RPGs though, isn't it? Even such wondrous examples as Baldur's Gate.

RPG=nerdly nerdlinging.

However, that in and of itself doesn't make any RPG bad, though.

Fallout 1 certainly had its issues at the start - it is quite a tough one to get into. However, I do think once you're into it the story is brilliant - and I am a huge fan of the turn based combat they use in Fallout 1 and 2. It works pretty well - at least as long as you don't have companions in Fallout 1, as they're pests. The companions are much better in 2, though.

Apologies if it's come across that way, chap.

Hi lensman!

Wait - so the atmosphere of Fallout is like Rick Moranis?

What?

It is after an ounce of mushrooms, and the sky tastes purple

Excellent! I am so going to play this game now. I've always wanted to play with a small nervous jewish man. With spectacles.

I ["purchased"-Ed] Fallout 2. And it's really shit.

I think you had to be there at the time to know quite why it's so great. It's a bit doddery by today's standards. I still love it, mind.

That's why it's called the 'Grandaddy of modern RPGs'.

Bear in mind folks - before you turn it off, remember that Fallout is a late-DOS only game, and most players of it probably didn't even have a Pentium. So forgive it some, for its pace - if you like rich worlds with amusing stories, full of nooks and crannies to explore, you'll love it.

If you want to play some kind of straight-forward 'Go and do stuff! And coo, isn't it pretty and fast!' game, that has plenty of pace and looks nice, and has 'proper' combat with guns-and-everyfink from the off, I recommend Mass Effect. I also recommend a lobotomy

The combat can be shit, depending on what your stats and skills are like. And weapons. Especially at the start.

Companion AI is a total pain in the whole, aye. It wouldn't be unreasonable to completely ditch and/or kill off your mates halfway through the game once you can look after yourself, simply because they're such a pain in the arse at times, and most of them insist on using crap weapons (and the only one who can handle a decent rifle will obstinately close in with knuckle dusters instead if you give them to him, and invariably get shredded) and no armour, regardless of what you give them. But they're handy for that reason - they draw fire away from you, and in the case of the dog, although he will suicidally charge anything, his constant low-level attacks can be very useful for knocking enemies about and keeping them busy while you take care of their mates.

More importantly though, you can use human companions as pack mules - they have no weight limits, so you can load them with dozens of guns and items for free, then when you need to use or sell them, simply steal them back - they don't care.

Fallout isn't a game to get excited about. It's just one to quietly enjoy. I'm not surprised it feels overrated when you first start, as it kind of is.

Both have slightly crap starts.

The first, with the cave full of rats and then the rubbish town full of god-fearing do-gooders.

The second, with the utterly, utterly shite village and temple and 'tribe' horseshit. I've lost count of the number of people who've heard about Fallout 2, bought it, and never gotten past the Temple of Trials, such is its hatefulness.

Shall I just read about the plots of the first two and fast-forward to the third one when it comes out? It sounds like reading about the games is more fun than actually playing them.

These days, probably so, ja.

After all, we all played through all of the other Elder Scrolls games before playing Oblivion, right?

Playing them is great fun. They just start a little slow. Although, if you don't actually like turn-based combat, they're a poor choice of game.

The plots in that series had nothing to do with each other, though.

I doubt it'd make a huge difference, but you'd probably get a little more out of the third if you'd played the first two. Although we don't know yet whether the third will be any good. I doubt it'll make a big difference either way.