Fallout 2

Never eclipsed by anything since 1998. This is my 5th original copy of this game btw.

I've already written a review for Fallout: New Vegas, which is a modern successor to this game, albeit without the zany 4th wall breaks

I am so very glad that You have this!

If you (like me) think of playing this without having experienced it 20 years ago, you will be disappointed. This game is RIPE with bugs, some of which even community patches won't fix. It becomes a trial-and-error-save-and-load-orgy very quickly. The fighting system sometimes forces you to wait about 40 seconds until you even are allowed to press the escape-button. 2 stars because i still like round-based-fighting and some of the dialogues are somewhat amusing.

I've recently re-played Fallout 1 and decided to give Fallout 2 another spin as well. F1 replay blew me away with tons of content that I previously didn't see, interesting in-game situations and a very deep, imaginative setting. F2 frustrated and eventually bored me. - You start with absolutely no resources and are expected to grind boring fetch quests and low-level enemies. This is just bad design. - The original imaginative setting was "augmented" with lots of nonsense. 1930-style mobsters. Several kinds of aliens. Talking deathclaws. Previously secret remnants of US government that have better technology than Brotherhood of Steel. It's way less coherent than the fist game. - Almost every aspect of F1 was somehow diluted. A lot of lazily designed quests. A lot of lazily designed locations. A lot of encounters that are either absolutely deadly or just boring cleanup depending on whether you're over some level threshold. There are many new weapons, but most of them are only marginally different from one another. Mk II leather and metal armor make upgrades feel less impactful. - F1 had a lot of cross-location interactions. This isn't much of a thing in F2. Locations here feel like isolated theme parks. - There is not enough space here to describe more complex differences in design approach, but the overall philosophy of design is very different between F2 and F1. It's mind-boggling that a low of people don't see that the two games are very different in many fundamental ways. The only aspect of the game that was clearly improved is companion handling. Companions now can level up, wear armor and some of them can help you with non-combat skills. If you want to avoid grinding boring content, you probably want to read about all perks, skills and attribute effects in advance and level up according to some plan. You can't afford to waste anything in the beginning of the game. Overall, for people who liked Fallout 1 and want "more" I suggest to get New Vegas.