Blast to the Past: What is the Appeal of Fallout
Ok so last time we covered why people are really into the Baldur’s Gate series, which sort of invented most of the CRPG genre (Ultimia is very sad right now)., Now for the other major Isometric game series, which launched one of the most influential series in Gaming history, I speak of course of Fallout.
Now I haven’t played Fallout since I was a kid because I remember the interface being extremely frustrating compared to BG (which like...that is saying something) but what people love about Fallout is primarily the story and the roleplaying. So what makes Fallout 1 so appealing
1) The post Apocalyptic genre, Fallout and Road Warrior probably define the aesthetic of that genre more than any other, and if that is your jam, then Fallout is for you, it is not just post-apocalyptic but it is deeply interested in the tropes and conventions of that genre. Now Cards on the Table this is actually a minus for me, I’m more of a fantasy man myself but diversity of genre is good so this likely makes fans of the genre very happy, especially since this game has done more for the genre to anything since Road Warrior
2) Classless system. Fallout doesn’t have classes, instead it has a very elaborate system of mechanical perks, stats, traits and skills, each of which can change a lot in how you play the game and express your character. You have a low more flexibility in building your character than the more rigid focus of Classes+stats+skills of D&D, though personally I prefer Character from Mechanics rather than Mechanical from character. However you want classless roleplaying, Fallout starts the Computer trend
3) Social as a real option. I think today people overestimate this in regards to fallout and seem to imagine that you can talk every enemy down, and that really isn’t the case, but certainly for the time Fallout was far more evolved in terms of social dynamics than Baldur’s Gate, and a social character is entirely viable. Critically you can defeat the final boss entirely through dialogue options.
4) Dialogue options are more like puzzles. Hbomerguy pointed this out in an earlier critique of Fallout 3 but I think it is worth repeating, in Fallout winning at dialogue options isn’t as simple as just finding the option with “Speechcraft 67″ written next too it. If you want to defeat The Master, you don’t just need a high Speech, you also need to have found the information necessary to change his mind (specifically that the Super Mutants are sterile), external evidence of said proof, and you also need to carefully pick the dialogue options to do so. Your high Speech and Int only open the door for you to be able to defeat him, you still need to have done your own research, asked other people questions, and brought evidence with you, which makes choosing the right option much more satisfying than just saying “you are wrong and I have 100 Speechcraft)
5) Variable play experience. This is true of all RPGS, if I play a male Dwarf Cleric in BG II and a male human wizard I am going to have different interactions but most of fights will be similar. But if you choose the “Jinxed” Trait at the start of Fallout, which basically dramatically increases everybody’s chance of Critical failure (including your enemies) the entire game is utterly different and a horrific tragicomedy of needless violence. But if you take this combined with 9 or 10 luck, then you will fail less and everybody else will fail more. It totally changes the nature of the game. If you choose the Empathy Perk, then bad dialogue options are highlighted in Red so you know not to pick them. If you choose Mysterious Stranger perk, a Clint Eastwood ripe off will sometimes show up to help you out in combat out of no where and then leave just as quickly.
6) Negative effects from stats. If you have a 3 charisma in BG, your party members will fight more, you will get worse rewards for quests, and you will get worse prices, but your dialogue options will largely remain the same. You won’t get the special bonus dialogue options open to high charisma characters, but you basically have the “default” dialogue options at all times. If you aren’t a caster, there really isn’t too much of a downside for having a low Int in BG, you are much weaker to mindflayers, as logn as you have some smarties in the party you should be fine. Not so in Fallout. If you play a low Int character, you are barely capable of speech so you have unique dialogue options and the game is totally different. Its objectively worse and kinda sucks but there is a lot of comedy gold in playing an absolute moron. Later games will pick up on this more, with New Vegas taking the cake with your own brain attempting to quit from you in protest.
(This is from fallout II but the point is the same)
7) Random Encounters. In BG, random encounters are all roughly the same, a different type of enemy shows up and attempts to murder you until you murder all of them. There are a few of those in Fallout but you also have much more inventive random encounters. just to list a few from the first game
You can find a wandering singer who will perform for you and increase your charisma by 1
A unique merchant named Duc, who if you kill, you will trigger a random encounter where his men seek revenge.
A random wounded Peasant which will give you some kind of prophecy
A Brotherhood of Steel person who will give you some information
Walk into a fight between two different factions (lots of variants of these)
Corpses which you can loot
Some travelers who can give you directions or info
And a fucking crashed Alien Spaceship which you can loot
Seriously far better random encounter design than most RPGs ever
8) Ideological conflict. This doesn't actually make Fallout better than BG, whose overall themes are more mythic than ideological but it makes it different, Fallout is effectively a story about adaptation, about society, technically and what does it mean to relate to the past. The Vault wants to effectively deny the outside world and pretend WWIII never happened, The Brotherhood of Steel is creating this weird dogmatic elitist technology cult in response to it, the Master wants humanity to evolve to a new species to solve the problem, and what will be the New California Republic wants to recreate the pre War United States. Different ideologies existing in opposition to each other is a core part of this series and Fallout starts it
9) The Aethetic. Fallout has a very unique look and feel which is so iconic that other video games keep ripping it off, and that I have been to multiple fallout themed bars in my life. This isn’t really evident in the game-play graphics which I think are objectively uglier than BG’s painted backgrounds, but more in the objects, interface, and interactions, like the claymation models you can talk to
10) Ending slides. Fallout starts the tradition of having a slideshow at the end that shows exactly how each of your actions changed the world in a different way.
12) This one doesn’t count because it didn’t really work but Purely turned based combat. Fallout uses the Action Point system rather than the semi real time/Turn based of BG. Now....this is more of a hypthoetical benefit because the turned based combat in Fallout doesn’t really work at all, so BG is just objectively better, but if it was polished it could be a radically different way of playing the game.
12) Dogmeat the Dog
There is a reason why this game is so beloved to this day, it brings a lot of very radical mechanical innovation to the table, even though it is borderline unplayable at times.