Lumpy said:
WTF? Did Fallout 1 actually have any humor besides the intro?
Fallout's humour was a great mix of occasional downright funny things, like Harold, Harry, Iguana Bob, Butch Harris (voiced by Ron Perlman), the Lou Tenant...
But mostly it was the dark irony that did it...
Like FEV was designed to be the saviour of civilized man (the USA) against the barbaric hordes (China) but ends up being the biggest threat to humanity, in both games.
Like how atomic bombs destroyed the planet's society, but an atomic bomb destroying the "boss-layer" is the ending of both games and thus the solution of the new threat against humanity.
World upside down in bleak, dark irony. Like how, originally, helping Killian would turn Junktown into a dictatorship, and helping Gizmo would make it thrive...
But y'know what? I guess Pete Hines' description is close; "Well, Todd Howard (Executive Producer at Bethesda) has talked a little about this. We're not big fans of jokes… developers that try to tell jokes, it tends not to work very well. You know, the humour in Fallout 3 is that you can get a weapon and blow a guy to a bloody mess, then when you pull up your interface, you see a little smiling cartoon character holding his thumb up. Like that's funny… funny not in terms of jokes or winks at the camera and such… "
That's right, Pete, you got it.