Halp! There's pop culture in my post-apocalyptic future!

First off, let me apologize for not posting for a few days... I contracted a ridiculous diarrhea/vomiting illness (including both at the same time) that sort of stopped me from doing much of anything for a few days. Hopefully my posting schedule will pick up in the coming days.

For today's Throwback Thursday, I'm going to be discussing Fallout 1 and 2. For those of you young'uns who have only played the third Fallout game... shame on you. The originals were truly brilliant games. To start us off, I'll give some basic background of the games.

Both Fallout 1/2 are played from a 2D isometric perspective (think Diablo 2) as they were both released back before 3D graphics were the norm. Also, unlike Fallout 3, the combat in the game is entirely turn-based. Basically, just imagine that you are always in VATS when you are in combat.

As far as story goes, Fallout 1 has you leaving good old Vault 13 in search of a water purification chip, while Fallout 2 has you leaving your tribal village (you are a descendant of the original vault dweller from Fallout 1) to find a G.E.C.K. Sound familiar? In both games, you trek all across the west (California, Nevada, etc) fighting bandits, mutants, and solving local squabbles. Both games have traits, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, and skills all similar to Fallout 3. Additionally, in both games you accumulate an entire party of followers (somewhere between 1 and 5 if I remember correctly). Okay, background aside, let's delve into some of the interesting stuff.

In my opinion, one of the greatest things about these original Fallout games is the way they reference pop culture pretty much constantly. At one point (I think in the second game), you find a little wishing well. If you attach some rope appropriately you can climb down. On the ground, you'll see a bunch of bottle caps (the game's currency). Try to pick one up, and you are greeted by this:

This is MY dream, MY wish, and I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back.

I don't want to exaggerate here, but that is pretty much the most awesome thing in the history of the world (you caught the reference right? If not, more shame on you). Also, throughout the course of the games you can find a Star Trek away shuttle that has crash-landed, King Arthur and his men (in full power armor) looking for the Holy Hand Grenade (then later find them fighting a VERY deadly rabbitrat), and even have a run in with the bridge keeper who asks you 3 questions (his robe is a SOLID piece of armor).

The other thing I really enjoyed in these games was the over the top combat. In my playthrough of Fallout 1, I took the Bloody Mess Perk, which unlike Fallout 3, does nothing more than make things explode more. Call me sadistic, but it is very fulfilling to walk into a big crown of bandits and watch all of them explode and/or vaporize as my alien blaster hits each of them in turn. Of course it does add insult to injury when one of those bandits lands some sort of crazy crit on you that hits for 3 times your max HP and you watch pieces of your own torso fall off... stupid bandits. All of this should still sound familiar to somebody who has played Fallout 3, but where do you think they got the idea from?

As far as rating the two games, in my opinion, the first game is MUCH better than the second. The second game really didn't have any improvements by way of graphics, interface, or items. The story in the second game felt much more convoluted to me as well (I'm a tribesperson, who is a descendant of a vault dweller and I need a GECK, no wait, I don't, I need to rescue my people, but I do need a GECK, but wait, there is one right by them). The second game was also a fair amount longer than the first -- too long in my opinion. I had started the second game last year around September, then got bored of it and only just picked it back up and finished it this last weekend. Finally, the second game had one other crazy flaw: disabling the "get the hell out of my way" flag from various NPCs. Allow me to provide an example.

At one point in the second game, I had two normal companions in my party and I freed an intelligent deathclaw who also decided to join me. This guy took up 2-3 times the space of a normal NPC. During the 10 minutes or so I had this fool in my party, I manged to get stuck in no less than 3 different rooms. Basically, I would walk into a room, say between a bed and a wall, and this deathclaw would walk in behind me... and then just stand there. No amount of clicking or yelling at the screen would get this idiot to move. I literally had to reload the game. In another place, I took take an elevator up a floor, and then it would placed the NPCs around me... in such a way that I couldn't move. While this deathclaw seemed to be particularly bad (I was tempted to kill him just for that), it definitely happened in other places as well, and while I suppose it might have been a problem in the first game, I certainly never noticed it until I got to the second one.

So what's the take home lesson here? The first Fallout game is great fun. I'd recommend it to anybody, especially if you are already a fan of the series via Fallout 3. The graphics really aren't that bad, and it is surprisingly playable even today. The second game is just okay, and if you play the first one and find yourself craving more old school goodness, check it out, but it really doesn't add all that much.