If you hadn’t already gathered, I’m a bit of a geek. When it comes to games, I absolutely lap up deep lore. I’m the guy that spends ages reading in game books, and then starts binging deep dive long videos.
Fallout is a series that caters to my desire for lore very well. without dating myself too much, when the first Fallout game released I was too young to play it. Fallout 3 was my first Fallout game, I can’t fully remember but I most likely played it on Xbox 360 (that and PS3 were dreadful ways of playing) and I vaguely remember having the DLC. I also played Fallout New Vegas when it released, but didn’t have the DLC at the time, and remember pretty much breaking my playthrough with some poor ingame decisions.
Fallout 4 was what really drew me into the fictional universe. Some people don’t speak too highly of Fallout 4, saying it had moved too far away from its RPG roots. However, that exact point is what makes it more accessible to the masses and makes for an excellent entry point. Hell, I played it on a PC but with an Xbox controller because I didn’t even have a desk at the time. The same couldn’t be said for Fallout 1 or 2. Anyone stumbling here from the TV series wondering how to get into the games I’d highly recommend Fallout 4 as your starting point. If you enjoy it, then look to some of the earlier titles.
There was so much to absorb in the game. From the books, terminals, different factions, multiple story endings and endless characters with their own deep storylines just makes the world seem rich and alive. Fallout 4 is a game I will revisit in time, I’ve yet to play any of the DLC but it will be a while before I get back round to it.
Fallout New Vegas (which is what the TV series draws a lot from) is easily my favourite game in the series, and one of my favourite games of all time. The second time I played it (with all the DLC, which is all worth every penny) was on an Xbox Series X. I spent over a hundred hours on that play through, soaking everything up I could. The world building and story writing is top notch. The world feels real, and it sucks you in to a point where you’re fully invested in it.
The beauty of these games though is that even after hundreds of hours played, you could pick one of these games up and have a completely different experience providing you make different choices throughout the story and play in a different style.
Having played everything (minus Fallout 76 which I won’t play) from Fallout 3 onwards at least once, the original Fallout and Fallout 2 began to pique my interest. For a long time I’ve been put off by their age, rudimentary graphics and isometric style. I watched a couple of videos on Fallout 1 and decided to give it a go. Gaming on Linux brought additional challenges, but thanks to the community edition patch (highly recommended, get it here: https://github.com/alexbatalov/fallout1-ce) I was fully up and running with a comfortable experience.
Immediately I was thrown out of my comfort zone. This game does not hold your hand. There is no tutorial whatsoever, you get a brief introductory video then you’re thrown into character creation with no explanation and then out into an open world with very little direction. There is logic behind this however. This game was released as physical media, back in a time when paper manuals were a thing. Thankfully if you buy the GoG version of the game, a digital version of this manual is included. I highly recommend you read it, or at least find out what you need to know from it. Once I did this my experience was a lot more comfortable and I could begin to enjoy the game for what it really is.
Fallout (1) is an incredibly large and deep game for something released in 1997. There are no quest markers, getting stuck is a very real possibility and you need to pay attention to what characters say to you. With only a mild spoiler (warning!) I’ll provide an example: In a settlement called Junktown you will come across a building with a dog (Dogmeat) preventing anyone from entering. The owner of the building will ask you for help moving the dog on. Through conversation you learn the dogs previous owner was a traveller who was killed by a local crime boss. When you enquire more about the traveller he mentions that the owner wore a leather jacket, which he thought ridiculous considering the heat of the area. Approaching the dog it just growls, and there are no further interaction options. Initially I thought maybe I could appease the dog with food, but no luck. The leather jacket comment had stuck in my head for some reason. I had one of my companions (Ian) carrying some of my excess gear, and one of those items was a leather jacket. I took it back and equipped it. Dogmeat took me to be his owner, left his post guarding the door and became my companion. Quest completed. Had I not paid attention to the dialog I would’ve never even thought to try that.
There is a dark humour to the original game that’s more prevalent than in the later titles too, it’s very witty and subtle but adds to the experience. Often there are dialog options which send conversations down strange, amusing paths, although I’d recommend saving regularly because one poor choice can get you in trouble fast, and combat can easily be initiated by a cheeky comment.
I’ve also found myself enjoying the isometric style of the game. Yes it’s dated, and can be clunky, especially trying to find doors to buildings that are on the side you can’t see, or trying to differentiate a locker with key items in from the surrounding walls. That aside it’s a charming art style, it’s moody and to a large degree timeless. It was never aiming for realism and for that reason has aged fairly well, in a similar way that The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker will always look good.
I will also admit that I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to anything scary in games. The Sierra Madre DLC for New Vegas freaked me out to the point I struggled to get through it. First person adds an uncomfortable layer to the immersion for me, and leaves me very vulnerable to jump scares. The diagonal distance view and turn based combat slows down the pace for me to a point that I can just enjoy the game without freaking out about dark corridors or spooky noises. This won’t be a benefit to people that like fast paced games, but it certainly is to me.
That draws me nicely to my conclusion. I’m yet to play Fallout 2, but from what I can gather it’s even better than Fallout (1). These older titles won’t be for everyone. However, if you’ve played the Bethesda Fallout titles, watched the TV series and are itching for more of the Fallout universe give it a try. You can usually get Fallout 1 and 2 for around £3 each, so not much of a commitment. Like me you might just find yourself really enjoying it, and the story and characters in these games add a lot of context to the later games and TV show.
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