Fallout (PC)

Today I'll be having a quick go of Fallout, the first game in the long running post-apocalyptic RPG series and the spiritual successor to Wasteland (which I totally failed to get anywhere in earlier this year).

In fact the game probably would've ended up released as Wasteland 2 if Interplay had been able to get hold of the rights from EA. But I think it worked out better that they didn't, seeing as now we've got both the next Fallout game and the reborn Wasteland sequel to look forward to. It's like the franchise has undergone mitosis and split into two separate organisms that have mutated in their own vastly different ways. Well okay it's more like three organisms if you count Fountain of Dreams, but I don't foresee a sequel to that one being kickstarted any time soon.

There are unofficial mods for this to increase the resolution and fix issues, but I'll be playing the GOG.com version entirely unmodded in glorious 640x480 res, just as it was in ye olden days.

You know what sucks about playing Fallout on a modern system? The loading screens disappear before you even get a chance to see them! You could blink and miss out on this art entirely.

Okay that one looks slightly less... professional maybe. Vault Boy's looking his usual badass self, but what's with all the smudging? And that text?

I don't even know what this one's about... is that concept art up on that board? Oh, it must be a photo of one of their development systems! Little known fact: Fallout was created on a homemade cyberpunk Virtual Boy.

Oh, it seems that we've switched down to a lower resolution for the opening video. To be fair games requiring Super VGA 640x480 resolution were pretty rare when development started (the game predates Baldur's Gate by over a year) so it's not actually doing bad at all here.

The intro begins with a cartoon of Vault Boy cheerfully watering his plants inside Vault 13, showing how awesome it is to be sealed inside an underground box behind a massive cog-shaped door, listening to 40s pop songs all day. See, the end of the world isn't so bad after all!

The fifties were a terrifying time for Americans living under the spectre of nuclear annihilation and it appears that they've brought back that tradition for the 2050s, or whenever this advert was first aired. Fallout is set in an alternative timeline by the way, where bomb shelters got much more advanced over the decades but televisions didn't.

Then again the TVs can apparently survive being left on for a hundred years while fully exposed to the elements (plus, you know, a nuclear apocalypse), so I suppose they must have been doing something right when they built them.

Anyway, a nuclear apocalypse apparently happened and now all those suckers who were taken in by that advert and actually bought themselves a room in Vault 13 get to have the last laugh. As everyone else is now dead and can no longer laugh.

War. War never changes. Ron Perlman told me that so it must be true.

He goes on to explain the events that led to this bleak future: conflict over diminishing resources, the Chinese invasion of Alaska, the US annexing Canada, and the big red nuclear button getting pressed.

But that all happened a hundred years ago, my character wasn't even born yet! Probably. I'm not sure how high I can set their age yet.

I get to create my own Vault Dweller or I can pick one from the selection available. Thankfully the developers have taken pity on players who struggle to compare lists of numbers in their heads and have also provided a written backstory for each candidate to indicate what kind of playstyle they're suited to.

I'm surprised to see there's only three choices here though: a charismatic diplomat, an agile thief and a dimwitted thug. I'm more interested in playing as a rocket scientist gunslinger though, so I'm going to have to tweak these stats myself.

There's no portraits for custom characters, but I don't expect I'd ever get to see my character's face anyway so it doesn't much matter.

The game uses the SPECIAL system for character stats, which is a lot like the D&D system except that the first letter each of the attributes spells out the word 'SPECIAL'. I can also tag the three skills I want to focus on levelling up out of that endless list on the right and pick some optional Traits from the box on the bottom left as well if I feel like it.

Whoa there's a button here to print out my stats! Well, print it to a file I mean... which I can then print out with a printer. I have no idea why I'd ever want to do that, but now I'm dying to click it anyway.

There you go, a print out of all the numbers I went with in the end, for anyone who has a magnifying glass handy to read it. (Don't ask why I've ended up with 43/34 hit points.)

The Traits are an interesting idea, as they all have a catch: Finesse means you inflict less damage but have a higher chance for critical hits for instance. Which sounded good to me so I grabbed it. I also took the Gifted Trait, which gives me less skill points to spend each time I level up, in exchange for a permanent +1 to all attributes.

I took the seven extra attribute points I got from that and used them to boost my Intelligence, which I'm hoping will giving me some of those skill points back again and open up more dialogue options as well. Then I put the spare points into Perception as that seems to be the sharpshooting stat. There you go, rocket scientist gunslinger.

Though there was no 'Rocket Science' skill (just a regular boring 'Science' skill), so I went with 'Small Guns', 'First Aid' and 'Speech' instead.

Right after I finished defining my protagonist, the Overseer popped on screen to inform me that we're getting kicked out of Vault 13 to carry out a mission of grave importance. You see, after a century of constant use the Vault's water purification system has finally broken down, and if someone doesn't traverse the unexplored post-apocalyptic wasteland outside and find a replacement water chip, every man, woman and child down here is going to eventually die of dehydration. Or worse, they'll have to get off their arses and leave the Vault themselves.

The only clue I've been given is that there's another Vault nearby and it'll likely have the part I need, assuming they're not using it to ensure their continued survival.

By the way, isn't that face model awesome for 1997? Pretty well animated as well. It's all pre-rendered CGI like you'd expect, but each of these talking heads started out as a real sculpted clay model before being scanned into the computer.

Alright I'm finally into the game itself. I can move around the level and interact with items using the mouse, so the first thing I'm going to do is move over to the door switch and interact myself right back into my nice cosy Vault.

Huh, they just told me over the speaker that they can't open the door because of technical problems. Man, I'm starting to think this whole crisis is just a con to get rid of me. Hey would you like me to look out for a door chip as well while I'm out, you bastards?

I wonder if this poor soul lying next to me was waiting by the phone for them to fix their technical problems as well. The extreme decomposition of his flesh and clothing is certainly consistent with someone who has been left on hold.

Well I think I've figured out where he went wrong at least; he remembered to bring 24 rounds of ammo but forgot the gun. Fortunately I started off better equipped, with stimpaks, flares and a 10mm revolver big enough to be mistaken for a shotgun.

I'll take those bullets then, plus his knife probably has some value as well. Shame there isn't a 'take all' button here to speed things up a bit.

Man, there's a lot of rats down here and they're the cocky type who think they can actually take me. The sad thing is that I'm only level 1 so they probably could.

Outside of a fight I can run around the level in real time, but once an enemy turns hostile the game enters a turn based combat mode. I get a certain amount of action points each turn (represented by the green dots above my pistol), which work similarly to the time units in the old school X-COM/UFO games. Any action such as taking a shot, accessing my inventory, or moving around the invisible hex grid that makes up the floor costs a certain amount of action points. Once they're gone I have to click the 'end turn' button and let the enemies have their own go before I get my action points back.

The trouble with this is that I'm really crap at fighting right now, so even though I'm only against rats it's taking forever to kill them and end combat. Then a few steps later everything comes to a halt again and I'm dragged into another fight.


SEVERAL RATS LATER.

Awesome, I'm finally out of the bloody rat caves of Vault 13 and the world is mine to explore. I can go anywhere, do anything!

Though everywhere's all scary and cloaked in blackness right now, so I think I'll just click on the Vault 15 button and let it automatically walk me over there.

This... doesn't look like a Vault. Still, these people must have come from somewhere right? Maybe they left a Vault years ago and there's a pile of water chips still in there for me to borrow. Doesn't hurt to ask anyway.

I can interact with people by holding the mouse button and bringing up this list of icons. They're all fairly easy to decipher: the top one must be 'Talk', binoculars are 'Examine', the backpack must mean 'Use Item', and Vault Boy's head obviously means... uh...

Oh it just brings up my list of skills. At any time I can open up the Skilldex and access skills like 'Sneak', 'Steal', 'Lockpick' etc. Not the slickest or most efficient interface, but it works well enough.

Right, it seems that years spent in hole in the ground has let my speech skills atrophy, so I have to communicate with people through this incredibly cumbersome semi-portable computer system. Or maybe this is just a stylish low-tech dialogue screen intended to make conversations look more interesting. Oh plus I can do my shopping here as well it seems, judging by that 'Barter' button on the right.

Well met kind stranger, if I may persuade you to refrain from talking about Radscorpions for just one moment, I would like to inquire about water chips, in the hope that you know of a location where I may obtain one.

I'd like to, but I can't, because there's no dialogue option here that even mentions water chips. Though there is a 'Tell me about' button. Hmm...

Okay then, what do you know about 'water chip'?

"Sorry. No clue."

Well that's helpful, thanks for that. Man it's like I'm playing Wasteland all over again, guessing at what keywords he might actually know something about.

Alright forget water chips then, how about a bit of trade? I'll exchange my spare knife for his... well he's got a piece of rope and some money, so I'll take that. I have to calculate how much cash I should ask from him to make this a fair deal, but it lets me type in the value with the numeric keypad so I'm not complaining. I'm always happy for an excuse to give those poor neglected keys something to do.

Incidentally the universal currency in the Fallout world is bottle caps (symbol '$'), which makes a lot of sense seeing as metal coins would be the first thing to be destroyed in a nuclear explosion. Or maybe they're all radioactive now, who knows?


SOON.

After exploring the town for a bit I found a Mad Max cosplayer who seems happy enough to join my party and help me save my Vault... for $100 up front. Sadly I'm just a little bit short, but I've got a cunning plan.

I've heard somewhere that the party system in this was kind of hacked in at the last minute, so the only way to trade items to and from a sidekick's inventory is to steal from them (they don't mind). So I'll sell my stuff to Ian here, then use the money gives me to recruit him and just trade all my stuff back to me afterwards. Or I could let him hold onto it for now I suppose, seeing as he'll be sworn to carry my burdens.

Alright, is there anything else in this town for me to do before I go off looking for Vault 15 again?

It seems like a risky move to give away my Vault's existance, but Aradesh here seems like a trustworthy type. Plus I'm a gullible type so at least it'll be in character.

He doesn't know anything about water chips, but he does add a town called Junkyard onto my map and offers me a side-quest to kill Radscorpions. Well I've got a sidekick now, I could use the experience, and it sure would be nice to get these people to shut up about Radscorpions already, so I can't see why I shouldn't give it a shot.

Alright I'll just check my journal for a second to check the details. Assuming that I even have a journal.

Oh shit, I thought they patched the time limit out! I've only got 143 days left to save my Vault and it took me a whole week just to travel across those five squares on the map. All those poor people back home are so screwed.

Well kudos to the developers for at least letting me know about it, not just giving me a surprise game over a few hours in. Now I know that I should only travel to places on the direct path to getting this water chip and that I shouldn't use the rest option after fights to recover my health. I'll get this Radscorpion job over with, but after that I'm saving the side-quests until I've gotten this water chip business resolved.

Maybe the scratched out button could've helped me somehow. Perhaps it could've been for a missing 'water chip detector' system that was later violently patched out of 2000-model Pip-Boys with a crowbar because... I dunno, it had a design flaw that fatally electrocuted 5% of owners, or made an annoying humming sound, or something.

Actually if you load up the demo you can find the mysterious button still intact, though its true purpose is a little anti-climatic. It was originally intended to bring up a 'clues' page, which sounds helpful, but apparently that idea didn't work out.

Right then. I'm off to kill the Radscorpions.


SOON, IN THE LAIR OF THE RADSCORPIONS.

Man, these things are bloody huge. You'd think that'd make it easier for me to hit the bastards, but I'm just as terrible a shot as ever.

Fortunately Ian is the Angel of Death, firing off two shots every turn, always right between their eyes. I can't control him directly, or stop him from accidentally shooting me instead when I've strayed between him and his target, but if I can lure him over to the enemies he's able to take care of the rest.

For just one action point more I can choose to fire a targeted shot instead, which brings up this proto-V.A.T.S. screen to let me pinpoint where I want my bullets to end up. What I want is irrelevant, as with as even my best option only has a 31% chance of actually hitting anything, but this at least makes me feel like I'm doing something.

Incidentally, the game lets me save anywhere and any time (even during battle), so if things start going bad I'll likely not lose much progress by loading my last save. Hasn't come to that yet though.

Did I get them all? I don't know why I'm looking here; enemies don't even show up on the map. Though at least I can use it to see where I haven't explored yet. Then later I can use it again to find my way back out of here.

The moral of this story is that maps are fantastic and should be in way more games than they are.

I've finally killed enough of these things to get me my level up! I can't change any of the attributes, but I do get some skill points to invest. Though my three tagged skills go up 2% for every point, so it seems like a waste to put them into anything else. In fact it seems like a waste not to dump them all into guns seeing as I have ambitions of eventually hitting something with bullets.

It's weird how the Fallout games split the weapon skills up like that I reckon. At some point I'm probably going to end up fighting enemies armed with sci-fi plasma disintegrators, while I'm stuck using some ancient off-brand AK47 because of my choice to tag 'Small Guns' 30 hours ago. But 'Energy Weapons' seems like a totally useless skill to start building up now, because how many laser pistols am I likely to find at the start of the game?


EVENTUALLY.

Alright, the Radscorpions are dead, I've collected my reward, and I can get back on the main path now. I'm heading straight to Vault 15 and I'm predicting that this is going to play out one of two ways:

1. I find the water chip, maybe fight off a boss monster, and then get back home just in time to find my own Vault on fire and everyone dead. Now I must avenge them!
2. I do a bit of fighting/talking, learn a bit of game lore, but otherwise find it was a wasted trip... except for a single clue pointing to my next destination!

Wait, hang on, I've stopped at a red lightning bolt? A random encounter maybe?

Oh, it's a random battle against more bloody Radscorpions (or Rad Scorpions this time according to the message box). At least I can occasionally hit the bastards now though. I'm aiming right at their eyes for maximum potential damage.

Then I grabbed their tails and ran off screen to get back onto the world map again.

I've made it to Vault 15 at last, though it looks like it was abandoned years ago. Now it's guarded by rats, more rats, and mole rats, but I can handle them. Well okay Ian can handle them while I help out from a distance.

The water chip search hasn't been going so well though. I've been searching through the lockers and so far I've found... some flares. Well that'll certainly help me make some rooms brighter for a bit. Doesn't really help me prevent the impending death of a Vault full of people though.

Damn, it's a good job I traded for that rope or else this would be a dead end for now. It takes three days to get between here and Shady Sands, so that'd be six wasted days on the timer just to get the tool I need to get down to the next floor.

I tried examining and repairing all the computers along the walls up here by the way, but I had no luck at all. This place has really gone to shit since the rats moved in.


ENTER COMBAT, SHOOT A RAT, EXIT COMBAT, WALK A BIT, ENTER COMBAT, REPEAT.

Now this is a much better haul: ammo I can't use and a Mad Max outfit that dramatically boosts my armour class from 6 to 14. I'm hoping that's a good thing, but you can never be sure in these 90s RPGs.

Well okay, now what? I've searched the base top to bottom twice over and there's no hint of what I'm meant to be doing next. Well I suppose my options are:

1. Go back to Shady Sands and tell them that their old Vault sucks. This'll cost 3 days maybe and will likely get me nothing, though I can then continue onwards towards Vault 13 to ask for advice (which will burn up another week.)
2. Go south to a new location and basically just ask everyone if they've seen a water chip (or another Vault). No idea what this'll cost me.

Well at least I got a second level up on the way out. This time I got to pick a Perk as well, which is kind of like a Trait except without the downside. I think I'm going to go with Night Vision in the slim hope that it'll improve my accuracy.

Maybe I should start investing some points too boost my weaker skills now I'm at level 3... but I'm just going to dump them all into Small Guns again instead. First Aid sounds like it'd be an important skill to have, but it only heals a tiny amount of health and costs hours to use, so I'm going to stick to using Stimpaks for now.

Also I've decided now that I'm going to south to Junktown, because even if it takes in the exact wrong direction it'll at least feel like I'm getting somewhere.


LATER, IN JUNKTOWN.

Man it takes forever to run around these towns. All the buildings are huge and spaced out, and I often have to run a lap around them just to find the way in.

Oh also I've learned something new which seems like an important thing to keep in mind: time passes in real time inside levels and there's a day/night cycle. If I arrive at a shop at 1am they're not likely to welcome me inside with a cheerful grin on their face. So that means I have to wait outside until a civilised time, which just adds more hours to that bloody clock! The game's trying to stress me out man.

Oh great, I can't even sell off my Rad Scorpion tails in peace without a bloody assassin coming to kill the shopkeeper. I was told very clearly not to equip weapons in town, but I kind of hope the guards will make an exception this once, or else this is going to end in a bloodbath.

As far as I know, every single character in the game can be killed, even the plot critical ones. So it's very much in my interest to keep this shopkeeper alive in case he's the one who gives me the next clue about the chip.

It does seem plausible he might know something, seeing as he's got a face and a voice and everything. In fact it's Richard Dean Anderson's voice no less and that was Tony Shalhoub from Monk playing Aradesh earlier. The game's got a pretty impressive cast really, no embarrassing voice work here.

MacGyver is grateful that I saved his life and all, but he'd like me to help out again by going up to the guy he suspects hired the killer and secretly recording his confession. I can either sneak in and plant a bug or trick him into straight admitting his guilt. Well I've got more points in Speech than I do in Sneak, so I'll go have a chat with the guy and see how that works out.

I am so tempted to go with the third option right now.

Funnily enough it was actually very easy to convince my suspect that I'm a badass assassin and I even got him to offer me a job to kill the shopkeeper for him. I guess all those points in guns finally paid off, though not quite in the way I expected. Or maybe they made no difference at all, who knows?

So now I have a difficult decision to make... nah, not really. I'll go back and present the recorded confession to MacGyver and see where this is all leading.


SOON.

Oh, we're just going to kill the crime boss then are we? Fine with me as long as I'm the one who gets to search the body afterwards.

Okay cool I survived the fight, received my reward, and got a nice new shotgun out of the deal as well... now what? Shit, don't tell me that was all just a side-quest!

130 days left, plus I'd have to walk all the way back to the Vault when I find the chip, so subtract 10 days from that... and I still have no leads whatsoever. Well, MacGvyer did mention there's another town south of here so I suppose I should keep on travelling.

Merry Christmas by the way. It's 25th December 2161.


THREE DAYS LATER.

Water Merchants? WATER MERCHANTS! Yes! Fuck the water chip, those lazy bastards back at the Vault can just trade for their water like everyone else in this (surprisingly well populated) wasteland.

First though I have to figure out how to get inside. This door here just leads to a dead end and the room at the south of the building's no better. Maybe if I go around the right side I'll have better luck...

Alright I'm finally inside. Turns out there was a door on the left wall that I missed,

The Water Merchants are asking me to pay $2000 out of my own pocket to get the caravans to my Vault going, which is a little out of my price range right now. I suppose I could go get a job in the city, but that'd cost time.

Though who even cares about water caravans now that I've finally found the lead I've been looking for! It turns out that nearby Necropolis is doing just fine without the Water Merchants, meaning that they have an alternative source of clean water, hopefully making use of a certain chip.

So Necropolis may be my salvation here. The name's a little bit off-putting, but I'm sure there's nothing there that Ian can't take care of


EVENTUALLY.

Well the good news is that I've found an underground community of zombie ghouls in the sewers under Necropolis and they've pointed me towards the water chip! The bad news is that Ian has finally ran out of ammo and there ain't no way I'm wasting time running back to the last town to trade for more.

Okay, apparently the parts needed to fix their water pump are lost in these sewers and without the water pump they're kinda relying on the water chip to live. So I fix their pump, they give me the chip, finally some clear direction!


TWENTY MINUTES OF WANDERING AROUND SEWER TUNNELS LATER.

Okay fine I give up, someone please tell me where to find these bloody repair parts! Or the water pump! Or the water chip!

I guess I'll take a chance and tell this guy to take me to his boss, because otherwise I may very well fall into a coma here trying to find anything in this maze of sewer tunnels, ruined streets and manholes.

This is what I deserve for taking a risk really. I figured this was going to be more of a 'take me into the next room to chat with a guy' kind of situation rather than a 'drag me off to a supervillain's lair' one, but nope. Now I'm locked in a room with half my health beaten out of me, all my gear missing, a sidekick with no ammo left, and a pathetically low lockpicking skill. Oh and 109 days left on the clock.

So basically I guess I just wait around in here for an event to happen or... hang on. Holy shit, I actually managed to pick the lock! There's a super mutant out there with a disturbingly huge gun guarding the cells, but I'm sure with Ian as a distraction I can get enough bullets into his brain via the eye sockets to surgically remove any thoughts he has about using it. Then I just need to find my gear, rescue the other prisoners, and make a break for the exit!

I think my mistake was letting the guy with the plasma cannon take the first shot. Turns out he only needed the one.


Congratulations to everyone who's been scrolling down through the pictures and skipping all of the text, you've reached the bottom of the page! All I have left to say now is what I thought about my first few hours of Fallout.

Well I didn't love it, that's for sure. I respect the game for what it is and its place in RPG history, but I didn't particularly enjoy it for the most part. I suppose some of that is due to me behaving like a big baby about the time limit, instead of chilling out and ignoring it, but if I'm not supposed to worry about the timer then what purpose does it serve? If it's just there to add challenge than that's even worse, as failure means that the player has to replay a decent amount of a fairly text heavy RPG, which is going to get old fast if they decide to stick with their original dialogue choices.

As far as the gameplay goes... well I've got no problem with turn-based combat in a game, but when that game has an X-COM style tactical time unit based battle system, it seems like common sense to me that the player should be able to control more than ONE character directly.

But I didn't even get into all the other options available to me. I'm sure a sneaky character would have the option to resolve some jobs without combat. Immoral characters could've ended up pickpocketing all kinds of gear I missed out on. Maybe a charismatic character could've charmed that super mutant into not locking me in a cell at the end there. Or maybe not.

In the end though the important thing (to me) is whether I'd continue playing it regardless and I think the answer is... yep. It's an interesting game with decent writing and a ton of atmosphere, and I'd be curious to see where it's going. So the game gets a star.

(Also it scores bonus points for including a couple of genuine Fallout-themed recipes in the back of the manual.)

---

Well I'm done, you can go now. Carry on with your day.

WAIT! Before you do that, why not leave some kind of comment in the box below? You could talk about your own experiences with the game, give me feedback on my writing, share your opinion about my site... all kinds of things.