If you would compare fallout series with other games, what games would those be?

I have not yet tried fallout but I'm close to buying it, at this time my budget wont alow it but in a few weeks it will.
So this thread will help me and probably others to chose if they should try it out or not.

thanks for helping me out, and since this is my first post ever here in gog please be nice to me!
I will give you guys this unicorn I drew as bonus.

Sincerely,

Olivre, Wrongway

The most similar game is Arcanum.

Fallout 1 and 2 are somewhat similar to Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, and that whole series of Dungeons & Dragons games, with the important difference that Fallout has turn-based combat. Fallout also uses a heavily modified version of the GURPS role-playing game rules instead of D&D rules.

The more recent Wasteland 2 and Shadowrun games are also somewhat similar.

Don't forget that there's also the original Wasteland!

Note that the Wasteland games differ in that they're party based; you create an entire party (or use the default, at least in 1) instead of creating just one character.

Wasteland 2 too!

Which comparisons are important to you? Story? Setting? Atmosphere? Graphics? Gameplay?

In terms of setting/atmosphere, Wasteland 1/2 are similar. Not too many games in the post-apocalyptic world with realistic-ish weapons coupled with weapons which we thought would have existed in the future if we were thinking about the future in the '50s.

Gameplay - generally contains:
- lots of conversation
- lots of turn-based combat
- start with one character, can potentially build a large party
- usage of non-combat skills to solve problems
- multiple ways to solve most problems

While I wouldn't call the combat challenging or deep, this isn't the core of the game. It's at least functional and IMO quite entertaining (mainly because I enjoy dismemberment and related gore ;) ). Also it's nothing like D&D combat (personally I think this is a very good thing).

Note that the conversation and combat can be as much or as little as you want it to be (to a point) - depends on character build and how problems are approached.

Potentially contentious words: I haven't played the first Wasteland, but personally I consider F1/F2 to both be superior to Wasteland 2 in many, many ways.

Thanks for all the replies this far, you guys have really given me a wider view of this game.

And to answer your question squid830.

Im actually interested in all of the above :)

If you enjoy that sort of gore, Wasteland 1 does it pretty well. You don't get to see it, but you do get some nice gory descriptions in the combat messages. (Wasteland handles combat messages like Bard's Tale: there are no graphics for actions, but there's plenty of text.)