Fallout

What an amazing, painful experience! The game will not hold your hand and I love it. You'll go to different places trying to find your objective, and have different events where each action have consequences. You will mostly die in this game. It will make you mad, feel lost, lose hope. But when you finally managed to eliminate your enemies or managed to open a very important door, it's like a nice relieved moment where you can take a deep breath and move forward. This game is very hard and probably isn't for most people, but If you like a challenge I highly recommend it. I managed to beat it with little to no help and when I reached the final cutscene I laid back and appreciated my journey and all the good/bad memories I got from the Fallout wasteland.

Fallout offers a good old RPG experience. Okay, compared to the sequel, there's a lot less ... of anything, I guess, and not much variety or use of the RPG elements. There are a lot of perks, traits or skills that you never use because there are few occasions in the game where you really need them. So it seems like there are few builds you can really do (and forget the predefined classes), unless you want a really weird challenge (like having less than 4 in intelligence...you'll have trouble speaking at all). The downside is it is in a buggy and unfinished state. It really annoyed me that you can't really get a good ending for each settlement, because there are unfinished/not implemented quests in the game that you need to get the best ending. And I'm kind of a completionist. Not to mention all the bugs in the game: quests don't start properly, quests aren't crossed out, when they're finished, my inventory icon turns black and I can't click on it, etc etc. I could go on and on if I wanted to. There are even some exploits that could be considered cheating (getting unlimited XP or caps), but of course I didn't use them. But luckily there are fan-made patches for these problema. I already used a High Defnition patch to be able to play on a modern PC with high resolution, but there are also fan-made patches like Fallout Fixt that fix most of the complaints I had with the game. Too bad I only discovered this when I was halfway through and didn't want to start over. I just played with this patch for a while after finishing the game once and it was great. Companions can be pushed to get out of the way, aren't limited to weapons, can also wear armor, it has a better interface, various bugs have been fixed, ... Therefore I give a cautious recommendation to play this game, but not without this patch. Unless you're a purist, but then you know what you're getting yourself into.

Fallout 1-2 and Tactics are - in my opinion - the very best RPG-s of the post-apocalyptic genre. On the technical side this version runs perfectly fine and without any problems on modern PC-s. On the story side I think Fallout 2 is the perfect version of BI's concept about a p.a. game. The relationship of the two is kinda similar to Diablo 1 and 2, except that on the side of game mechanics F 1-2 are not that different. All in all I highly recommend this, but also you should approach it with an open mind and let the atmosphere suck you in.

Fallout is a real gem but this finding can only be found when you beat it 10 times. Only then you will be able to understand the complexity and possibilities in the game. Not only decisions matter but also the order of your decisions matter which leads to one of many endings. You can follow the main path - to find a water chip - or you can create your own story. Hell, I even beat the game without finding the chip (tho the Overseer thanked me for helping them, which was weird to be honest and the final cutscene should have been adjusted IMHO). There are many places you can go, many situations you may win or you may fail depending on how much developed your character actually is. There gare many quests you may not find if you do not look around properly. Tho, the game has some flaws. First of all, it's really short which also lead to minimalistic writing which moves the plot forward. Cmon, you found the chip and the Overseer then calculated that there are many Mutants out there so someone must create them, so you must destroy a lab. What? Just like that? Out of the blue? How did you calculate it? Why actually? How do you know there is a lab? If the game was longer, the writing would be ritcher so the plot would make more sense and overal it would be much more believable. Also combat can be frustrating as despite you have your companions around you, everybody just attacks you, so often every turn you have just one option - to heal yourself. Despite these flaws, Fallout is really a gem, especially when you take into account the year when the game came out. Fallout is a 1997's game and when you look even further into the history, there was no such a game in 1996 or 1995 or 1994. From today's perspective the game may look and feel a bit primitive but as I said there was no game like Fallout in 1997. Fallout is an unquestionable RPG legend. (I own GOG's classic version of Fallout which had been sold till Bethesda re-released it again scrapping the old version).

This RPG does something that I believe every RPG should: It makes player choice feel meaningful. The character creation system, with its S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, perks and skills allow for a wide range of different builds and combinations, with many perks deeply inlfuencing and altering gameplay and possible actions you can take. This is something that is reflected on the rest of the game too, there are many different weapons to choose and combine with others, and there is almost always multiple ways of solving a problem, either through violent, pacifist, or some other means. You're never forced to follow a specific path or solution to a quest, and the game often rewards you with XP for taking a less obvious approach to solving a problem. For me, player choice is the strongest point of this game. The ambientation in general is really good too. It's not just a post apocalyptic world, but one that is slowly rising from its ashes, with new societies and power structures developing, many interacting with one another. The simplistic graphics allow your mind to "fill in the gaps" of what some parts look like, while the ambient music compliments it by setting the foreboding tone of a dying world that refuses to give up. Unfortunately, the game has lots of cut content and bugs, and it is quite obvious sometimes, such as random crashes, crashing when alt-tabbing, and quest that appear on your menu but can't be completed because they aren't finished, but these problems are never big enough to distract from the main experience. Despite it's flaws, Fallout is a really good game, with meaningful player choice, good ambientation and not very long, but still very memorable. Linux Compatibility (for me): Other than the bugs mentioned, the game runs well. I used Proton Experimental this time for the game, through April 23 to May 07, but any recent version of Proton should give good, if not better results.