Naked Lunch’s rants have reminded me that I never actually finished Fallout, so I’ve been replaying it. I’m having a lot of fun with it, which is impressive for an eight year old game, but I’m also having trouble seeing what makes it “the best RPG ever.” The setting and writing are top-notch, but most of the game mechanics frustrate me.
I think a lot of this has to do with the passage of time, so I’d like Fallout fans to try and get me “in the zone” to appreciate it. My first, aborted play through took place in like 2003, so I’m rather short on perspective. So send some positive nostaligia mojo my way!
(PS: Does the text parser ever become useable? I’ve had zero luck with it.)
Fallout can be played with a lot of different character types, which gives it a lot of replay value. As you recognized, the setting and writing are excellent. The battle system is fast-paced and exciting, and I still can’t find another game that gives me the feeling of satisfaction I get when I’ve ripped an enemy to shreds with the SMG in Fallout. The timed quest gives the game a real intensity and puts pressure on you, at least the first time through. I think Fallout just broke a ton of precedents and really broke from the mold. It was one of the first PC games I bought for myself and I’m probably always going to name it as my favorite PC RPG, if not RPG period.
It’s the best RPG ever because it allows for a wide range of play styles; there are very few, if none, useless skills; the game has different endings depending on your actions; choices have consequnces et cetera to a degree never seen before (and since, it seems). Games have come close to replicating Fallout’s greatness, but none have done it in the style and grace that FO did. God, I remember the first time I played it. The intro movie blew me away and locked me in and never let go. Made a sneaky character but ended up fighting the rats anyway. I remember the first time I crit’d a rat and got that beautiful, beautiful gore. Geez, I’m getting all misty-eyed just writing about it.
The “Tell Me About” was thrown in there just for kicks it seems, though it’s nice if you’re a FO junkie like me and crave every single detail possible.
But, be more specific. What mechanics “frustrate” you? The turn-based combat? SPECIAL? Tandy’s sweet ass? What what what?
The combat system is terrible. And the inventory system / barter economy is a gigantic pain in the ass. But every dark cloud has a silver lining: The combat system is so bad that it has encouraged me to create a diplomat character-type. Which is going really well so far.
Why is it horrible? Is it because it’s turn based? Goes too slow? Personally, I love the combat. The death animations never get old and there’s nothing like the thrill of aiming a 5% shot at someone’s eyes and then scoring a critical on it.
Inventory could use some work, yeah, but I just used the PgUp/Down keys and it wasn’t that much of a problem. Note for the bartering counter you can use the numpad to enter the amount rather than scrolling.
Oh, and diplomats are really fun to play. My personal favorite character build I’ve made is an unbelievably lucky sneaky barehanded ninja guy with tagged stealth, unarmed, and outdoorsman (I hate the random encounters in games, especially with a melee character). Sneaking up behind little kids and then killing them in one punch was good fun.
The combat is by far my favorite part of the game, but I love the whole thing. Unless you don’t like turn based combat or don’t get a kick out of shooting children in the eyes, I’m not sure what there is to dislike.
Really that was what did it for me, I think. On my first playthrough, I decided (as I usually do in RPGs) to see what happens if I go on a killing spree. I wiped out the entire second town after many many reloads. When I killed the kids and got branded a “childkiller”, I was in love. After leaving the second town, I got accosted in the desert by a bounty-hunter who was after a child-murdering savage. I killed him, took his stuff, and had the time of my life.
Fallout hurts my eyes on my LCD screen. It runs at a native 1280x1024 and I’m pretty sure Fallout 1/2 are 640x480. It’s muy blurrisimo and I get a headache after about 20 minutes.
I remember one discussion with a coworker about Fallout a few years back. “Yeah, I heard this was a great game, so I tried it. I tried shooting a rat in the eye. It did 1 hit point of damage. I mean, I shot a RAT in the EYE and it did 1 hp. I said ‘screw this’, and returned it.”
I enjoy Fallout, but I can see his point. The combat system was far from perfect.
Tell you the truth, soon as I was pitted vs rats in the corridor out of the Vault, and the combat froze for me to pick my target, I nearly dropped the game right there too. I was fresh from playing Diablo and somehow expected games to have ‘evolved’ to exciting realtime combat. Only the fact I had just returned another game and didn’t want to face the clerk again made me push on. Well, turns out once I got past the rats, humans were so much more fun to pepper with SMG’s, and the deliberate choices of turn based combat had me hooked (again, as Xcom had already initiated me a whiles back). Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My gripes on the combat system would be the time delay for you interface coming up is too long (that “bssshhhh” sound too), controlling squadmates could be much better, and little things to simply get the pace going quicker between choices (make an option to have AI play simultaneous? I dunno).
I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I recall the same feeling; here I am in my first fight, and I’m spending a seemingly large amount of time trying to kill some simple freaking rats. With messages telling me things that would lead me to expect that I should be mauling them, while the actual results are not matching those messages.
If you want to add flavor text or hit locations, they do need to make sense (in the context of combat generally). I do not expect any grizzled survivor human type to have too much difficulty killing a normal rat, in particular when they are apparently hitting it in the eye with pointy damage weapons.
I remember one discussion with a coworker about Fallout a few years back. "Yeah, I heard this was a great game, so I tried it. I tried shooting a rat in the eye. It did 1 hit point of damage. I mean, I shot a RAT in the EYE and it did 1 hp. I said ‘screw this’, and returned it.
No offense, but your coworker is a fucking moron and shouldn’t be playing computer games.
I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I recall the same feeling; here I am in my first fight, and I’m spending a seemingly large amount of time trying to kill some simple freaking rats. With messages telling me things that would lead me to expect that I should be mauling them, while the actual results are not matching those messages.
You ever try killing rats in real life? Especially with a knife? They don’t just stand there and wait for you to hit them. They scurry around and bit and nip and all that stuff. If you hit one in the eye, it could just be a glancing blow and not deal that much damage. A fun thing to do is once the battle is over, go through it in your mind (or use fraps and fast forward it) and imagine it in a real time and you’ll see what I mean. That’s what gets most people turned off turn-based games, the whole “OMG HES JUST STANDING THERE AND I MISSED LOL WTF NOT REALISTIC GAY GAY GAY.” I just imagine turn-based as extremely slowed-down real time, like bullet-time almost, where you can see every action individually. Don’t take the combat at face value and you’ll have a much more fun time.
Warning – There’s a Fallout 2 patch out there somewhere that allows you to bump up the resolution to your desktop resolution and all that good stuff. I think it’s called “FAllout 2 Patcher” or something. Check it out.
eh… Half my entire company about six years back was playing Everquest and going on about how awesome it was. Whereas in Fallout I spent what, 15 minutes killing rats? In Everquest, it took 4 hours of rats and bats just to make level one, whih then upped me to snakes and spiders. That’s when I quit, figuring the progression to foxes, badgers, eagles, rabbits, hippos to DRAGONS would be a long, long journey. Most early rpg’s had rat bashing… what can you do?
I really never liked the combat in Fallout. There was far too much watching and waiting and not doing anything. The problem came from it being turn based but you only controlled a single character. So combat would go something like this: Make your move, watch as your party makes it’s moves, watch as 20 bad guys make their moves, watch as random NPCs make their moves, make a move. I love turn based combat, but I really really need to control more than one guy for it to be fun for me.
Yes, it can go slow sometimes but FO wasn’t a party-based game. It was all about the one wandering loner in the desert western-y type thing. I think the way to make the combat move faster and generally more enjoyable would be to use concurrent enemy turns like in Night Watch or ToEE.
Remember back in the day when Sierra released “pretty new graphics” SVGA versions of some of their classic adventures? I think there was a Space Quest and a King’s Quest that got the treatment.
I’d have paid full pop for updates of Fallout 1 and 2 which used the graphics and combat from Fallout Tactics. The graphics would be icing, but if I could have individual control of my party members so that Ian wasn’t consantly emptying his SMG into my back, that would have been cake.
Not feasible for a million reasons, I understand, but I always thought it would have made for a great excuse to revisit the wasteland.
