Fallout Fallout 2 is way worse than I remember it.

[JarlFrank]

New Vegas is a successor to Fallout 2, not Fallout 1.
It makes a difference.

 

[Ryzer]

New Vegas is a successor to Fallout 2, not Fallout 1.
It makes a difference.

It's a successor of Fallout 3, same gameplay, same engine, and same philosophy of showing skill checks in dialogues and handholding with a god damn quest marker. It's not even close to Fallout 2.

 

[Ryzer]

Do you guys seriously defend a game with romances, gamebryo engine, quest markers, Shown skills checks, settlements with 5 NPCs and an empty open world ?

 

[Butter]

Fallout New Vegas doesn't have romances friend. What game were you playing?

 

[Ryzer]

Fallout New Vegas doesn't have romances friend. What game were you playing?

Effects of player's actions After completing Bleed Me Dry, Red Lucy will offer to sleep with the Courier, as they have proven to be a mighty hunter.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Lucy

This character is romanceable.

Requires female character with Black Widow perk

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Benny

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_sleeping_partners
I'm sorry I mean " sleeping partners" instead of "romance".

 

[wishbonetail]

I tend to disagree on New Vegas part. I think it is much closer to fallouts overarching theme. If we do not take its wacky DLCs, the Mojave part is about war, how it never changes and how it changes people and communities involved in it. Almost every quest is somehow interwoven with the big narrative, making the game world believable and coherent. F2 has nothing of the sort and seems all over the place thematically.

 

[Sykar]

Maybe he installed a Loverslab mod.

 

[Butter]

Fallout New Vegas doesn't have romances friend. What game were you playing?

Effects of player's actions After completing Bleed Me Dry, Red Lucy will offer to sleep with the Courier, as they have proven to be a mighty hunter.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Lucy

This character is romanceable.

Requires female character with Black Widow perk

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Benny

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_sleeping_partners
I'm sorry I mean " sleeping partners" instead of "romance".

To be fair, that probably qualifies by Josh Sawyer's definition of romance.

 

[Sigourn]

Fallout New Vegas doesn't have romances friend. What game were you playing?

Effects of player's actions After completing Bleed Me Dry, Red Lucy will offer to sleep with the Courier, as they have proven to be a mighty hunter.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Lucy

This character is romanceable.

Requires female character with Black Widow perk

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Benny

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_sleeping_partners
I'm sorry I mean " sleeping partners" instead of "romance".

Whoever wrote that is a retard.
"Romance" = actual romance. Not just a fuck. Fallout 4 has romances. Fallout: New Vegas does not. It's telling that five out of eight characters are actual prostitutes (including Fisto), the two remaining women are sluts, and Benny is just horny for dat Courier booty.

 

[wishbonetail]

Fallout New Vegas doesn't have romances friend. What game were you playing?

Effects of player's actions After completing Bleed Me Dry, Red Lucy will offer to sleep with the Courier, as they have proven to be a mighty hunter.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Lucy

This character is romanceable.

Requires female character with Black Widow perk

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Benny

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Fallout:_New_Vegas_sleeping_partners
I'm sorry I mean " sleeping partners" instead of "romance".

My favorite "romance" option is Maud "You won't notice anything once the lights are out, hon. The places that count are still firm enough..."

 

[Butter]

But seriously, not only did Fallout 2 also include sex, it even included marriage. It has more romance than New Vegas QED.

 

[Sigourn]

or New Vegas. They're much closer to Fallout's preamble "war never changes".

But New Vegas is also a theme park.

Nah.
Almost anything "wacky" about New Vegas makes sense in the setting.

• Fisto? It's a robot programmed for your pleasure, and as we know already people have a fetish for anything.
• Caesar's Legion? Their outfits are goofy, but they are a part of a whole, crucifixion and slavery aren't as goofy.
• The casinos are themed, and not any more goofy than real Vegas casinos (which are also themed). I wonder if Caesar would have rebuilt the Caesar's Palace casino...
  
• The Kings are probably the goofiest thing I can think of about New Vegas. But then again, a far cry from the Hubologists.

 

[Ryzer]

But seriously, not only did Fallout 2 also include sex, it even included marriage. It has more romance than New Vegas QED.

Still not a gamebryo game, has 0 quest marker and doesn't show skill checks to the player...
Also In this game Low IQ chars play totally differently.

 

[Sigourn]

My favorite "romance" option is Maud "You won't notice anything once the lights are out, hon. The places that count are still firm enough..."

Nina Hartley IRL.

 

[wishbonetail]

Still not a gamebryo game, has 0 quest marker and doesn't show skill checks to the player...
Also In this game Low IQ chars play totally differently.

Quest markers are pure evil but let us not forget that F2 has ghost. Fucking ghost, man. Whomever brilliant idea that was, Bethesda should hire him.

 

[Sykar]

Still not a gamebryo game, has 0 quest marker and doesn't show skill checks to the player...
Also In this game Low IQ chars play totally differently.

Quest markers are pure evil but let us not forget that F2 has ghost. Fucking ghost, man. Whomever brilliant idea that was, Bethesda should hire him.

You can mod quest markers out.

 

[Ryzer]

I'm not even sure if I have played the same New Vegas everyone talk about on the forums. They speak about stuff that isn't in the game or supposedly "extremely good" dialogues that have yet to be seen.

You can mod quest markers out.

The game was designed around quest markers just like Oblivion and Skyrim. It's not Morrowind.

 

[Valdetiosi]

Do you guys seriously defend a game with romances, gamebryo engine, quest markers, Shown skills checks, settlements with 5 NPCs and an empty open world ?

It has bunch of revolvers and shotguns with diverse ammunition. That's more than what Bethesda has managed to do in their Fallouts.

 

[Sykar]

Played it without. It is perfectly viable if you know the game. Also quite a few NPCs do give you some directions.

 

[Valdetiosi]

The game was designed around quest markers just like Oblivion and Skyrim.

Could you give example of a quest that requires it? Because I look up through quests and each of them points out NPC at SPECIFIC LOCATION when you need to talk to person, or OBJECT in SPECIFIC LOCATION in quest objectives.

What is a quest that is impossible to figure out without quest markers?

 

[wishbonetail]

The game was designed around quest markers just like Oblivion and Skyrim.

Could you give example of a quest that requires it? Because I look up through quests and each of them points out NPC at SPECIFIC LOCATION when you need to talk to person, or OBJECT in SPECIFIC LOCATION in quest objectives.

What is a quest that is impossible to figure out without quest markers?

Find Carlitos is the only one bullshit quest i can think of, which is unsolvable without marker.

 

[wishbonetail]

I'm not even sure if I have played the same New Vegas everyone talk about on the forums. They speak about stuff that isn't in the game or supposedly "extremely good" dialogues that have yet to be seen.

You can mod quest markers out.

The game was designed around quest markers just like Oblivion and Skyrim. It's not Morrowind.

Look, search for survivalist's caches in Honest Hearts. If that story doesn't touch you, nothing will.

 

[Ryzer]

It has bunch of revolvers and shotguns with diverse ammunition. That's more than what Bethesda has managed to do in their Fallouts.

That's not a praise. There is a lot of post-apocalyptic games doing better mainly Stalker games. Tell me do you only play Bethesda games?

Look, search for survivalist's caches in Honest Hearts. If that story doesn't touch you, nothing will.

It was a bunch of FedEx quests, felt like a chore.

 

[agris]

I played Fallout 2 first because I was initially put off by Fallout 1's time limit (I was young and stupid). So theoretically I should prefer Fallout 2, as people tend to like the game of a franchise they played first the most.

I've grown to prefer Fallout 1 over the years, though.
(It's the exact same with Thief 2 and Thief 1 for me, funnily enough - played the second game first, grew to prefer the original over time)

There are various reasons for that, but the essence can be boiled down to: Fallout 2 is not a tonally consistent sequel to Fallout 1.

I would even go as far as to say there are three distinct Fallout canons (if we only consider the mainline games, I haven't played Tactics and the Diablo clone so I have no opinion on them):
- Fallout 1, which stands alone
- Fallout 2 and New Vegas
- Fallout 3 and 4

rest of post

Fallout 1 was the creation of Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason D. Anderson. It was tonally mostly serious, with some humor and pop culture references sprinkled throughout. The worldbuilding was simple but effective. It's a post-apocalyptic world, you are the citizen of one of several vaults that were built before the apocalypse to serve as shelters for select elements of the population, intended to preserve humanity from certain doom. But the world outside did not entirely perish, people survived in the wasteland and built new communities in the ruins. It's all very down to earth, heavily inspired by the vibe of the Mad Max movies. Small independent communities scraping by. Trade exists, but there's no governmental organization beyond independent city-states. Raiders pose a danger to travelers, as do mutated animals. The problems that exist in this world are either at a personal level or at a community level. A village having problems watering their crops; a town facing corruption from within; etc. Even the Master, whose plan threatens the entire playable area (I'm saying "playable area" because "entire wasteland" would imply a too large area, even if the Master were successful his plans wouldn't impact very far beyond the borders of California for logistical reasons), is mostly a local threat. It is ultimately a story of communities trying to survive and rebuild in a ruined world. The tone is generally serious, despite the splotches of dark humor and Monty Python easter eggs (that most people never even find, their place in the original game is often exaggerated). The writing is not without levity, but it's playing the post-apocalyptic genre completely straight. It is, basically, a 1950s pulp adventure mixed with 1980s post-apocalyptic genre tropes.

Cainarskyson left the company after Fallout 1 and went on to found Troika. Without the three main brains of the game, Fallout 2 ended up a completely different beast. It's playing its setting a lot less straight and put more emphasis on the humor. Monty Python references in Fallout 1 were merely an easter egg that could be stumbled upon with a high luck and outdoorsman score, but Fallout 2 wears its pop culture references on its sleeve. The Hubologists as an obvious reference to Scientology, openly existing in one of the game's major locations. Parodies of some elements of the original Fallout, like a talking deathclaw, showing that the developers didn't take the subject matter as seriously as Cainarskyson did. Then there's stuff like New Reno and its 1930s gangster culture that feels like the developers just decided to put in anything that seemed cool to them at the time. The Wanamingos too, which are... aliens? Again, aliens in Fallout 1 were a rarely encountered easter egg intended as a reference to 1950s science fiction tropes, which perfectly fits the 1950s pulp adventure style Fallout went for. Fallout 2's references and sources of inspiration, on the other hand, are all over the place. It's not half as consistent in tone and atmosphere as Fallout 1 was. It's still a good game and has some top notch quest design, but tonally it feels more like a parody on the post-apocalyptic genre than a straight play on it. Fallout 2 also introduced a bunch of lore elements that weren't there in the original, like the Vaults actually being government experiments.

New Vegas had several of the people who worked on Fallout 2 in its team, and is the logical continuation of that game. You can easily trace every element of worldbuilding, storytelling, quest design etc from Fallout 2 to New Vegas and draw the connections. Tonally they are extremely similar: inspirations cobbled together from various sources, rather than one central theme that holds everything together. Lots of edgy humor mixed into the writing and worldbuilding, making parts of the world feel a little too silly. A vibe of post-post apocalypse, where the stage of dealing with the collapse is already over and society has stabilized enough to now face the problems of an established civilization. This already began in Fallout 2, with New Reno, Vault City, and the NCR, and it continues in an even more pronounced way in New Vegas, with the NCR, Caesar's Legion, and Mr. House's independent Vegas. It is no longer about a small community not having enough water for their crops, but about landowner associations holding all the rights to the crop fields which leads to organizational problems for the farmers. The story theme is not about survival and adventure in a destroyed world, but about the rebuilding of society in a world that rose from the ashes. Fallout 2 and New Vegas are very similar in that theme and in their treatment of it.

Great post, really mirrors my impression of them as well. Fallout 1 stands on it's own and is far superior to 2, while FNV is the Oblivionification of 2.

For what it's worth, I believe that while you frame the creative energy and inputs that went into Fallout 1 correctly (Cainarskyson), you miss a bit of what made Fallout 2 of a grab-bag of shit wearing a Fallout coat of paint: Feargus Urquhart.

^^^ this chump. If you listen to Cain and Boyarsky's various talks about Fallout 1, it's clear that they were managing the production of Fallout 1 themselves with only minimal interest from Brian Fargo and really no input from Feargus. Feargus is listed as the Division Director for Fallout 1, which may sound to some like he had a heavy influence. I think anyone with a bit of working experience can tell you, a unit manager like "division director" can either be heavily involved in a project - usually why they're called pet projects - or pay absolutely no attention to a project as long as it isn't creating problems for his managed unit or bosses.

Feargus's lack of involvement with Fallout 1 is also supported by simply looking at his credit list for where his focus was in the '96 - '98 time frame. He did game design for Shattered Steel, which probably was mostly '95, maybe some '96 as it was released that year. As well as being the designer for Shattered Steel, he was also directing Baldur's Gate 1 and the Ultimate M&M Archives while producing some game called Norse by Norse West. Being a producer as well as directing multiple commercial releases takes time, plus he was doing other things related to the D&D IP such as re-releasing old games as packages.

Fast forward to Fallout 2 and now you have him listed as the producer. He produced that shit! This is the man who only secured the rights to Baldur's Gate because of FOMO, not because he saw the potential. He also missed the potential of Fallout, but as soon as it had commercial success and cultural cache, inserts himself as the producer and proceeds to produce a vastly inferior, tonally discordant sequel.

I'm by no means a Black Isle historian, many others know the beats of Interplay and BI during this time much better than me, but I do know my Fallout 1 history and I think you're right to lay the praise at the feet of the father, the son and the holy ghost. Yet, when it comes to Fallout 2, I see the greasy grubby fingers of Mr. Urquhart all over it.



Paging Chris Avellone for a gut check!

 

[wishbonetail]

It was a bunch of FedEx quests, felt like a

FedEx, chore. Someone's been playing games with quest markers on.