Fallout

Voices of: Charlie Adler, Richard Dean Anderson, Jeff Bennett, Clancy Brown, Jim Cummings, Keith David, Brad Garrett, Tony Jay, Tress MacNeille, Kenneth Mars, Richard Moll, Ron Perlman, CCH Pounder, Pamela Adlon, Tony Shalhoub, Cree Summer, Kath Soucie, David Warner, Frank Welker
Developer: Black Isle Studios, Interplay Entertainment
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Directed by: Feargus Urquhart
Rating: M
Genre: Role-playing game
System: PC
1997

Times Completed:
Tim: 1

Summary: A survivor of a global nuclear war must venture outside of his protected Vault to find a new chip for their water purifying machine.

Review:
Tim: I've long wanted to get into the Fallout series, so I started at the beginning (which I usually try to do). In this case, it was a heck of a memorable experience. This 1997 video game is definitely a landmark and it inspired a major video game franchise. It's also extremely challenging- like most games were back then. I have many thoughts on this game. But, to write a headline- Amazing game, steeped in difficulty, very little quality of life considerations.

I started the game with no background and decided I'd try to figure it out. That did not last long. The game is not easily accessible to start. I had to start reading. I soon stumbled onto a guide and decided that yes, I'd use it frequently. Now, Fallout isn't that hard to pick up, once you get over the learning curve. You point and click and move your Vault Dweller around the screen. You engage in battles, talk to people, open lockers, etc. The mechanics are all fairly expected, it's just been a long time since I played a point-and-click game. This can be extremely frustrating at times, but I quickly got the hang of it.

Much harder is the progression of the story. You learn early on that without a new water chip, your Vault's water purification process won't work and eventually, you'll run out of water and everyone will die. You have 150 days to fix the problem. This immediately added immense stress. I wasn't familiar with the passage of time within the game, so this challenge hung over my head. Time actually moves quite slowly (as long as you're not traveling), but I had this fear that I'd run out of time and my hours of gameplay would be wasted. I ventured out (helped by a Steam guide) and began my adventure.

I wasn't fully prepared for how much luck seemed to be involved in the proceedings. The battles you fight can be extremely difficult. You might get a huge amount of lives out of the opposite, or you might get shot by your colleague accidentally. It all felt so random. So, what I ended up doing for some of the harder battles is to spam save- Oh, I got hit for 25 hit points from a bad guy? Guess I'm reloading the save. Oh, Ian accidentally shot me twice? Reloading a save. Eventually, I'd hit the right combination of luck to defeat the harder bad guys- but yes, sometimes this took reloading the same battle repeatedly. Was that fun? No. I'm not really sure how else to do it, though. You level up in the game extremely slowly. Your stats improve, but it never felt enough to be a viable threat to the major enemies you'd face. So yes, I could kill some rats and mole things pretty easily. Death Claws would always require a good amount of luck, though. And, for some of the human encounters- there were so many bad guys it was easy to be overwhelmed. I continually relied on luck to see my way through those battles. That was challenging and middling fun, but extremely frustrating at times.

At a certain point in this game, I realized I wasn't going to master it. I wasn't going to complete every side quest, I wasn't going to be the best at Fallout. My first goal was to get the water chip to save my Vault (I was reasonably confident I could do this) and then, try my best to actually beat the game. I was far less sure of my ability to accomplish this. I moved around the wasteland and did quite a few of the side quests- the guide was immensely helpful, I'd likely have missed 80% of nearly everything without that focus. This game doesn't hold your hand or help much at all. It's brutal in that sense. I did reasonably well for a while- I moved through Vault 15, Shady Sands, and Junktown. I enjoyed my time in Junktown- some of the quests there were challenging, but it felt like I'd kind of hit my stride. I knew how to play the game and I'd progressed enough to feel a bit confident in myself. As I've aged, I appreciate understanding a game more than "beating" it, and for the first time in my life, I understood Fallout (to some extent). That was fun. The Hub was cool, but I got into some trouble here. I paid a lot of money to send water back to my Vault to extend the deadline. I'm not sure I needed to do this, but it gave me peace of mind. Some of the quests here were so difficult, I didn't bother to finish them. I did venture into The Glow and learned a lot about Radiation Poisoning. This was the one part of the game where I thanked the video game gods I had an earlier save- it's the point where I had to backtrack the most. I learned how to take my radiation medication BEFORE I entered The Glow and made it through the earlier part. I wasn't interested in the stress of exploring it further. That maneuver allowed me to access the Brotherhood of Steel's facility. I really liked this place- the cleanliness of it, the ability to get myself stronger. I was really looking forward to Power Armor, but this is where I made my biggest Fallout mistake.

On one of the side quests, I had to go rescue someone in The Hub. But, as soon as I entered the town, everyone attacked me. What the hell? I managed to kill a few of the police, but even reloading saves with lucky moves proved ineffective. I couldn't understand what happened. After reading online, I realized my mistake- somehow, I'd attacked (or was attacked by) a patrol in the middle of the waste. That was a group of Hub officers and my bloody slaughter of them put me on the Wanted list for the town. I read a lot about how to wait outside the town, how to once again have access to The Hub. None of that ever happened. They always hated me, even months later. So, I had to give up on the best armor in the game. I felt the rope I was on with this game start to fray.

At this point, I felt somewhat stuck. Would I be able to progress any further? I kept at it and I did the Boneyard strategy of killing Death Claws and then resting, leaving the area, and coming back to kill some more. Even though I'd gotten stronger, I had to pick off 1 Death Claw at a time- when 2 approached me, I'd always die. I did this for a while and beat a level or two, but it was excruciatingly slow. I contemplated doing this for hours and getting much stronger, but eventually great fatigue set in. Because I couldn't access The Hub, it became more difficult to go back to Junktown to ammo up. Eventually, I decided to make a crazy leap towards the endgame.

I ventured to the Military Base far earlier than I expected to. I used the Radio to get the mutant guards away. I was eventually able to pick the lock with the Electronic Lock Picks, and eventually made my way through the first floor, despite several rounds of dying (I had to reload a save and leave my companions outside). I got to level 4 without setting off an alarm, and I set the base to self-destruct. I ran the hell out of there, before it exploded. Whoa, without really expecting to be successful, I destroyed the Military Base. Now I was cooking. I went to The Cathedral, determined to at least finish the game. After multiple errors, I finally made it to The Master! Unfortunately, I made mistakes there, too. I never read Vree's Autopsy Report. Damn. That's because my Intelligence was too low (a sad, appropriate realization after struggling through this game). So, I had to improve my Intelligence (thank the stars it was already at 6). I had to collect a ton of Bottle Caps (so annoying) and then go to the Brotherhood of Steel and invest in myself, raising my Intelligence to 7. This took a bit of time. With my brains working better than ever, I navigated those sub-quests and read Vree's Autopsy Report. I went back to the Cathedral and once again spoke with the Master. I realized The Diplomatic Ending was the only one truly available to me.

I kind of like that I was able to talk my way out of this. It felt like a nice change of pace from having to destroy the final boss. But yes, I admit this was the only way I could finish the game. I'm sure I missed out on better endings, but Killian took control of Junktown, I didn't kill Rhombus, so they drove the mutants away, The Raiders were destroyed as a fighting force.

I know I wrote too much here, but this was quite an adventure. Some of my stats- I got to Level 12. EXP- 74,476. HP- 72. ST- 5, PE- 6, EN- 4, CH- 9, IN- 7, AG- 5, LK- 7. Small Guns- 110%, Big Guns- 28%, Energy Weapons- 40%, Unarmed- 75%, Melee Weapons- 67%, Throwing- 63%, First Aid- 75%, Doctor- 60%, Sneak- 56%, Lockpick- 55%, Steal- 41%, Traps- 35%, Science- 77%, Repair- 63%, Speech- 102%, Barter- 83%, Gambling- 51%, Outdoorsman- 55%. My chosen Perks were More Criticals, Action Boy, and Swift Learner. My kills- DeathClaws 13, Ghouls 13, Men 64, Radscorpions 28, Rats 125, Super Mutants 6, Women 17. My Karma Reputation- General (40). I know these aren't the best numbers- I didn't fully understand everything and I learned a lot in my playthrough here. My main team consisted of Ian and Tycho. I had Dogmeat for a while, but that crazy pup eventually was killed and I couldn't bother to save him. I did recruit Katja at the end, but she did basically nothing. I loved Tycho. Ian killed me because he literally killed me numerous times. Dude needs to work on his aim.

The visuals are impressive for 1997. I loved the lore and the setting. The idea of this game taking place in a nuclear wasteland, the idea of Vaults, the RPG elements but the action focus of the game. I can see why this game became so popular. The experience of playing it was often aggravating, but I'm so glad I started here. I got to see how the actions I took impacted the overall game. One mistake (killing that Hub group) totally changed my path in the game. I give a ton of respect to people who solo this without help- I'd have been lost without the guide. The voice cast was really impressive, too. Richard Dean Anderson? Clancy Brown, Keith David, Tony Shalhoub? That's crazy cool for 1997.

Fallout is a game I so appreciated playing, but I was so relieved to have finished. I honestly thought dozens of times that this might be a game I "finished" playing without actually "finishing" the game. I admit I didn't play a great game, but I did enough to experience Fallout and I'm so thankful I managed to finish it. I'll need a long, long break, but I do want to try the sequel.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



If You Enjoyed This Game, We Recommend: Fallout 2, Fallout 3