I'm replaying Fallout now... um, mainly because I felt the urge to play it again and I haven't installed the original game in a good 6 or 7 years. I've considered it one of my favourite games of all time since I first played it, and I was curious if that still held true today.
The intro (along with Fallout 2's) is still one of the best intros in any game, ever made, on any platform. It sets the tone for the game perfectly, and still sends a chill down my spine.
The gameplay has aged very well, for the most part. The cliche giant rats in the cave outside the vault was instantly tedious, but thankfully didn't take too long to clear out. I couldn't remember where the various settlements were, as it had been so long since I last played it. I also couldn't remember if certain towns were in this game or in Fallout 2. The sense of freedom was still alive and well. I stumbled into the raiders' camp and got myself into a situation where I either had to whack the leader's cowering slave girls, or get killed myself. I ended up killing his girls, which gave me enough XP to level up, so I pumped everything into my guns skill and then took out the raiders and claimed their HQ for my own.
More games need to let you do this stuff.
On the down side, the inventory system is still atrocious. I don't know how this was ever considered a usable interface. The graphics are still decent enough, but the utter repetitiveness is getting to me. All of the buildings in one town look way too similar, but the worst part is the lack of variety in character sprites. Depending on the armour that you are wearing, sometimes raiders or guards will look almost identical to you. That's annoying.
Also had some problems in Junktown with NPCs being ignorant of the world state and with quests that I had accomplished. That's irritating too, and I thought it had been fixed by one of the patches. When talking with the mayor of Junktown, I pissed him off by insulting his town, but all I had to do to get him friendly again was exit the conversation and start again.
The SPECIAL system is still probably my favourite CRPG system to date. A couple of the skills are mostly useless and not worth spending points on (Traps, Doctor, Barter), but it still stands out as one of the best.
Haven't finished yet, but I remember it only took me about 20-22 hours to finish the first time anyway. Having a blast with it though. The graphics get a bit wonky sometimes in Vista, with black squares on the screen or neon colour palettes.
