Game of the Month #55 (August 2019) - Fallout

In this classic turn-based RPG, you are an anti-hero trying to survive in a darkly comedic post-apocalyptic future. Your existence -- a subterranean Fallout shelter modified to house 1000 people indefinitely after a nuclear holocaust. It's been nearly 80 years and the people still don't have any idea what's out there. Sure, they've sent out volunteer scouts, but none of them have returned...Now, your water recycler has failed. Rationing has begun, but someone needs to leave the vault to get a replacement microchip for the water recycler and look for other survivors. You all drew straws. You drew the short one. Enter a world of mutants, radiation, gangs and violence, and hope you get back in one piece ... and with no pieces falling off.

Be sure to install the Fallout fixt (purist) patch! If only because, as I recall, you cannot get the Canon ending without unofficial patches. I believe the digital versions are also censored and need the patch to restore some censored content. Also comes with optional HD monitor patch, if you want it.

I played this a few months ago as part of my retro backlog and loved it! I rated it a 9/10 and said:

"The genesis of this legendary game franchise from back in 1997 is still an impressive feat in PC gaming, especially since it predates isometric RPG classics like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. The atmosphere and world building accomplished with this game is incredible, a result of the amazing audio visual design and writing. As a game it has its issues, especially the clunky interface, poor AI, and potential to break a character with poor stat selections. However, it's still an experience that any PC gamer, RPG fan, or Fallout enthusiast should definitely add to their backlog."

Guess it's time for me to brush up on my dosbox config skills and install Fallout!
After I'm done with the DLC for Baldur's Gate.

Just had my first play through of fallout. It feels rather slow at the moment and difficult with the basic setup. I also feel I didn't spec correctly and couldn't take down a single Radscorpion. I prob will re roll tomorrow and try again but this might not be a game for me

Just had my first play through of fallout. It feels rather slow at the moment and difficult with the basic setup. I also feel I didn't spec correctly and couldn't take down a single Radscorpion. I prob will re roll tomorrow and try again but this might not be a game for me

I feel you. I really want to like games like Planescape, Baldur's Gate ans Fallout. Stories seem interesting and the games have great reviews and all. But the underlying AD&D core mechanics is too heavy for me. So, I decided the retire these games a long time ago.

Just had my first play through of fallout. It feels rather slow at the moment and difficult with the basic setup. I also feel I didn't spec correctly and couldn't take down a single Radscorpion. I prob will re roll tomorrow and try again but this might not be a game for me

Agility is one of the most important stats because it gives you more action points per turn, which means more spaces to move or more times using your weapon. Endurance, Strength, Perception, Intelligence should be somewhat decent for health, carry weight, aiming, and skillpoints per level respectively. Luck is not very important at all and Charisma is almost pointless. You need it if you want a lot of companions (2 charisma per), but they aren't very important or helpful (and really just get themselves killed) and you can just put skillpoints into barter and speech after the fact, so you really don't need Charisma.

For traits I prefer Gifted and Fast Shot. You'll get less skillpoints but you get 10 more SPECIAL points to use, which are much harder to come by. Fast shot will allow you to use your gun more often in a fight which is beneficial for obvious reasons.

Just had my first play through of fallout. It feels rather slow at the moment and difficult with the basic setup. I also feel I didn't spec correctly and couldn't take down a single Radscorpion. I prob will re roll tomorrow and try again but this might not be a game for me

Some non-spoiler tips:

* Do the first quest you get ASAP, but you should be fine as long as you're focused - this isn't a game where you need a walkthrough to do it right
* Use all 10 save slots! I use the first 8 in cycle, the 9th every time I enter a new area, and 10th every time I enter a new world map location
* The stats I'm using this time are S8, P6, E8, C5, I9, A9, L2; Unarmed, Lockpicking, Speech; Gifted, Good-Natured. You can find plenty guides on character creation, if you want. The Fallout fixt mod also includes the official strategy guide, which has tips.

I've started this game so many times, but always when I'm playing something else so I never get far before going back to that. Did it again last month, but I just beat Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, so maybe I can finally finish Fallout this month with my new character!

I feel you. I really want to like games like Planescape, Baldur's Gate ans Fallout. Stories seem interesting and the games have great reviews and all. But the underlying AD&D core mechanics is too heavy for me. So, I decided the retire these games a long time ago.

just as a heads up, the enhanced editions of Baldur's Gate (and probably Planetscape and Icewind Dale) have a"story mode" difficulty. So people like us who do not like the gameplay can still experience the story.

just as a heads up, the enhanced editions of Baldur's Gate (and probably Planetscape and Icewind Dale) have a"story mode" difficulty. So people like us who do not like the gameplay can still experience the story.

Oh, so that makes the game more action-RPG then ? Rather than heavy stats AD&D style RPG ?

Oh, so that makes the game more action-RPG then ? Rather than heavy stats AD&D style RPG ?

Not at all, just "you win every encounter and get on to the story faster".

Oh, so that makes the game more action-RPG then ? Rather than heavy stats AD&D style RPG ?

To get more on-topic talking about cheating through games, if you really DID want to just play for the story and world-building without worrying about stats or anything, you could use a character editor to max out your all your various stats, becoming effectively invulnerable and passing all skill checks. I think Fallout fixt also has an advanced option to disable/extend indefinitely timers for mutant takeovers of towns and the vault running out of water, but be careful because you could risk having things spoiled by digging through the options - even just changing those flags is a minor spoiler, albeit one that aren't likely to affect your experience.

Oh, so that makes the game more action-RPG then ? Rather than heavy stats AD&D style RPG ?

Agility builds are the best for first playthroughs.
The first 2 Fallout games also have lots of borderline useless skills so be sure to not waste any skill points on them. Stick to Guns (preferably small guns), Speech and maybeeeee Steal (Steal can especially be abused if you're into that, sucks for replays though I M O) early in-game, then branch out to the others you encounter occasionally like Lock-picking and Science (they're actually not skill checks like in the modern Fallout games, so that means you can waste a lot of time on a single safe/door even if you did put a ton of points into them).

Take the Sniper perk late game.

Trade with your companions everything you can't carry, then buy it off them again and sell it to other traders. You'll be loaded in caps by mid-to-late game.

Honestly, I feel like Fallout is a bit overrated. It's not a terrible game, in my opinion, but so far I'm not impressed with the depth of choices and interactivity. Maybe I'm spoiled on games that came since and Fallout - which I didn't play on release - is more of a big deal in retrospect. I'm especially displeased that the ability to play a pacifist is overrated. To play a pacifist, I feel like you'd have to skip most of the game. I'm not even trying to play a pacifist (though I do sometimes take a non-violent route to solve a problem), but I have to reload frequently because NPCs turn against me at seemingly no provocation. Maybe that's realistic and stresses the consequences of every action...but mostly it feels like everyone is a violent psychopath ready to kill you on a dime, and you can SOMETIMES avoid combat if you reload and try a different route.

I had this same issue with Wasteland 2, where most of the "choices" seemed to make no sense. I open a door, I'm attacked. I talk a guy, I'm attacked. I walk in front of a guy, I'm attacked. I choose to help people and things go horribly wrong. Unpredictable consequences are fine every now and then, but in Fallout it's like I'm constantly playing Russian roulette. I don't feel like what I do actually matters because the output is so disconnected from my input that the game might as well randomize every event.

For all its flaws, I do think that Torment: Tides of Numenera did a better Fallout game than Fallout. But, I've yet to beat it, so maybe I'll be surprised.

Okay I've just rerolled and followed peoples suggestions by taking in more agility. It definitely has been a tremendous help and I've now cleared the radscorpion cave and made my way to Vault 15 with Ian.

The game is alot slower then I'm use to and I'm having to accept I need to slow down in my playstyle. Still I'm getting use to it now that I've rolled properly and i'll continue to play.

For those who are interested I went for a high charm intelligent and good natured style character and just found it difficult to take on the scorpions in the cave

Fallout 2 might be even worse when it comes to what works and what does not for the early bits, as you've got a rather tough fight right at the start. Well, tough unless you've made a character that's good in a fight at least.

Agility builds are the best for first playthroughs.
The first 2 Fallout games also have lots of borderline useless skills so be sure to not waste any skill points on them. Stick to Guns (preferably small guns), Speech and maybeeeee Steal (Steal can especially be abused if you're into that, sucks for replays though I M O) early in-game, then branch out to the others you encounter occasionally like Lock-picking and Science (they're actually not skill checks like in the modern Fallout games, so that means you can waste a lot of time on a single safe/door even if you did put a ton of points into them).

Take the Sniper perk late game.

Trade with your companions everything you can't carry, then buy it off them again and sell it to other traders. You'll be loaded in caps by mid-to-late game.

Thanks for the details, it all confirms that I won't like the game. Too much stats management. Not for me, too complicated.

Thanks for the details, it all confirms that I won't like the game. Too much stats management. Not for me, too complicated.

It's actually pretty straight forward. Small guns is the most useful combat skill since it's the most effective one (maybe besides Big Guns late-game) and finding weapons/ammo is relatively easy past the first few hours.
Speech is necessary if you wanna get around certain situations and not shoot your way through everything, like most RPGs.

As for character builds, Agility is certainly the best one combat-wise, and Charisma the useless one since you can just simply put points into Speech after.
Picking the wrong perks won't make the game impossible, but there are certainly some that are pretty damn useful.

I get it that it can be a little tricky getting into it, it didn't tick with me the first time I tried it either. Guess second time was the charm.

It's actually pretty straight forward. Small guns is the most useful combat skill since it's the most effective one (maybe besides Big Guns late-game) and finding weapons/ammo is relatively easy past the first few hours.
Speech is necessary if you wanna get around certain situations and not shoot your way through everything, like most RPGs.

As for character builds, Agility is certainly the best one combat-wise, and Charisma the useless one since you can just simply put points into Speech after.
Picking the wrong perks won't make the game impossible, but there are certainly some that are pretty damn useful.

I get it that it can be a little tricky getting into it, it didn't tick with me the first time I tried it either. Guess second time was the charm.

I think some people just aren't into games where they have to manage numbers/resources. RPGs, simulators, etc. Nothing wrong with disliking these games, and especially the older ones assumed knowledge of tabletop games and how they generally functioned.

I think some people just aren't into games where they have to manage numbers/resources. RPGs, simulators, etc. Nothing wrong with disliking these games, and especially the older ones assumed knowledge of tabletop games and how they generally functioned.

Yep, exactly. I get turned off rather quickly when there's just TOO much stuff to manage. If I need to spend more than one minute to create a caracter, well, it's usually a good sign that I'm going to dislike the game. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm always so reluctant to start a RPG. Even more basic games like Final Fantasy or games like that. Having to grind to get armors weapons and all that shit I need to manage. Sometimes it's just too much. I also think that's one of the reasons why I've never played any Pokémon games. Just thinking about the hundreds of Pokémons is scaring me. Too much information to learn and not enough action.

Like I said earlier, if they were to make a more action oriented remake of the original Fallout games, and Baldur's Gate and all the other well knows games like that, I'm sure I'd like them.

Yep, exactly. I get turned off rather quickly when there's just TOO much stuff to manage. If I need to spend more than one minute to create a caracter, well, it's usually a good sign that I'm going to dislike the game. I think that's one of the reasons why I'm always so reluctant to start a RPG. Even more basic games like Final Fantasy or games like that. Having to grind to get armors weapons and all that shit I need to manage. Sometimes it's just too much. I also think that's one of the reasons why I've never played any Pokémon games. Just thinking about the hundreds of Pokémons is scaring me. Too much information to learn and not enough action.

Like I said earlier, if they were to make a more action oriented remake of the original Fallout games, and Baldur's Gate and all the other well knows games like that, I'm sure I'd like them.

It's funny. I enjoy tabletop games, so Baldur's Gate, Fallout and most other older and modern CRPGs are fine by me (though not all are to my taste, even if understand them). I also enjoy some simulation games. But MMORPGs and JRPGs tend to confound me, for whatever reason. Just that difference in how they're designed and who they target. BG and Fallout really aren't that picky about how you build your character and don't require much, if any, grinding. That's what makes them great for someone like me, who does play games mostly for story/exploration and plays on easy. But I can see how the mechanics could be not to the taste of other people who have an even lower tolerance for it.

Thanks for at least trying the game and contributing to the discussion around it - I for one always appreciate your insights :)

It's funny. I enjoy tabletop games, so Baldur's Gate, Fallout and most other older and modern CRPGs are fine by me (though not all are to my taste, even if understand them). I also enjoy some simulation games. But MMORPGs and JRPGs tend to confound me, for whatever reason. Just that difference in how they're designed and who they target. BG and Fallout really aren't that picky about how you build your character and don't require much, if any, grinding. That's what makes them great for someone like me, who does play games mostly for story/exploration and plays on easy. But I can see how the mechanics could be not to the taste of other people who have an even lower tolerance for it.

Thanks for at least trying the game and contributing to the discussion around it - I for one always appreciate your insights :)

I did try Fallout. Just really did not like it. I wanted to because it does sound like a good game. But like we've been discussing, there are too many things to worry about.

I have good memories of playing BG and Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights with a friend. Well, I have memories of watching HIM play these games back in the 90s. I liked watching it. Not playing it. Everything was just too confusing for me even then. But he was playing D&D with friends and all and understood the mechanics very well.

Same for the FF series. My first experience with the game was watching my cousin play FF6 when it came out and it was confusing.

I really started enjoying some RPGs when FF8 came out. It was well balanced for me. Then I completed Xenogears, Brave Fencer Musashi, Jade Cocoon and orher games like that from the PS1 era. These were rather simple, but I liked them that way. Actually, we have to go back to Secret of Mana which is the first "more complex" game that I really liked.

That being said, can't wait to read what other people have to say about Fallout. I kinda feel bad that I'm not even playing it (and won't) yet I'm taking all the space in the thread. Hahaha ! Oh well... I guess I'll go back to playing Zelda... ;)

Fallout is probably far easier to get into than anything D&D based at least, as most of what you have to worry about is percentage based, with modifiers, unlike the old AD&D games like Baldur's Gate, which has the really counter-intuitive THAC0 system. Not saying that THAC0 is overly complex just not intuitive at all. With Fallout you've got a % chance to hit, which is modified by things such as distance, and if you're aiming at a specific body part. So I think that as long as you're aware of the importance of agility, making a Fallout character is actually really easy. Dump a lot of stats into Pick small guns as your "tag skill" and then something else that looks cool, and you're good to go.

Arguably, FF8 is quite a bit more complex and unintuitive than Fallout, with the whole junctioning system and all that stuff. But I think it's better to view JRPGs as its own beast. While JRPGs and games like Fallout do have a common ancestor, they've evolved apart for so long that they're pretty much nothing alike

Fallout is probably far easier to get into than anything D&D based at least, as most of what you have to worry about is percentage based, with modifiers, unlike the old AD&D games like Baldur's Gate, which has the really counter-intuitive THAC0 system. Not saying that THAC0 is overly complex just not intuitive at all. With Fallout you've got a % chance to hit, which is modified by things such as distance, and if you're aiming at a specific body part. So I think that as long as you're aware of the importance of agility, making a Fallout character is actually really easy. Dump a lot of stats into Pick small guns as your "tag skill" and then something else that looks cool, and you're good to go.

Arguably, FF8 is quite a bit more complex and unintuitive than Fallout, with the whole junctioning system and all that stuff. But I think it's better to view JRPGs as its own beast. While JRPGs and games like Fallout do have a common ancestor, they've evolved apart for so long that they're pretty much nothing alike

While AD&D video games assumed more familiarity with a system than Fallout (which is pretty intuitive, especially if you read the manual and know from experience that being decent at combat is important), AD&D isn't THAT bad if you know that lower AC and THAC0 are desirable. It's no less intuitive than golf in that way. And AD&D has the benefit of not having perks/feats (HLAs notwithstanding). Heck, I still have a Fallout perk point that I haven't decided how to spend. And melee/unarmed are also viable skills, so long as you put decent points in strength and endurance. At least, that's what I did and I'm doing fine. Now, if only I could find a power fist and small energy cells... If anyone has a tip on a location I can find them, let me know in a spoiler tag :)

While AD&D video games assumed more familiarity with a system than Fallout (which is pretty intuitive, especially if you read the manual and know from experience that being decent at combat is important), AD&D isn't THAT bad if you know that lower AC and THAC0 are desirable. It's no less intuitive than golf in that way. And AD&D has the benefit of not having perks/feats (HLAs notwithstanding). Heck, I still have a Fallout perk point that I haven't decided how to spend. And melee/unarmed are also viable skills, so long as you put decent points in strength and endurance. At least, that's what I did and I'm doing fine. Now, if only I could find a power fist and small energy cells... If anyone has a tip on a location I can find them, let me know in a spoiler tag :)

The lower is better system for AC & THAC0 is something that does tend to trip up new people quite badly though. In a system where high is good in almost all situations, AC does stand out as a sore thumb, and new players tend to struggle with that bit a lot more than anything else, even more complex parts. Heck, I've played enough tabletop AD&D to know how bad it can get :P Far more complex systems than AD&D tends to trip up people less.

Yeah, you're right about the perks/feats, that's something they added later. Leveling up in AD&D is quite linear, as long as you don't multi-class or use more advanced things like prestige classes (which most games skip).


As for power fist location

Mild spoiler:
Look for people who might have access to pre-war tech. There are more than one group that has access to that

Major spoiler
The most obvious group would be the Brotherhood of steel, they can give you on if you work for them. But a far easier one to get would be from the Gun Runners. If you find a city that has an area that's populated by deathclaws, you're in the right spot. Third group would be the super mutants. Probably want to be careful around those though