So I finally got around to finishing Fallout a week or so back. Now, rather than go into a full blown review, because that hasn't been done enough already, I will just go on about things that I liked and how I played the game in general; and a fair word of warning as there will be some story spoilers.
The character I created, ended up being named "None" because that is the default name while creating your character. I of course realized this well into the game when something popped up about my None introducing himself as "My name's None." So I ran with it although I never actually created a suitable backstory for why this was the case. With None, I decided on the following stats:
I decided that since None was going to be the one chosen to leave the relative safety of the underground vaults, he would have been chosen because of some skill dependent on being able to find a replacement for the water filtration system, so I chose "Repair" as one of the three primary skills. I chose "Melee Weapons" expecting that the first batch of weapons that I would be using would be knives, spears and such and I would want to be conserving ammunition, especially in the early levels. "Small Guns" seemed like a no brainer since it includes both pistols, rifles and shotguns. Trait-wise, I picked "Skilled" because again, I thought that the Overseer would want to send someone with some kind of book smarts since the others that had previously been sent out had not returned. With some skill with small guns, I decided that the "Finesse" trait would also be a welcome addition, since criticals are always a welcome addition to any fight, with obvious exceptions.
So on Saturday December 5th, 2161, None was sent off into the Wasteland. He came across every settlement in what turned out to be the Los Angeles / Southern California basin. What I loved about this setting, was that I was familiar with a number of the towns in this world that were not Los Angeles, such as Bakersfield and Lakewood. None managed to pick up a follower (NPC) by the name of Ian in Shady Sands and they did travel together for a while later recovering a functional replacement water chip in Necropolis (Bakersfield). At the request of the Overseer of Vault 13, None and Ian set out to eliminate the mutant threat that was perceived as a very real threat to those who lived in the Vault. Ian was later lost (or died, I cannot remember) while hunting down the Super Mutants who were taking over the Necropolis.
I should probably also mention that None never acquired the Dogmeat in Junktown. I knew he was there as I had managed to have him join me a couple of times on previous playthroughs. My first time through Junktown, I thought maybe I had to complete something later on to pick up the dog, but by the time I recalled that I did not have him in my service, I felt that I did not need another NPC that would seem to act as minor cannon fodder and would make me want to restart battles whenever he died. And I know for a fact that Dogmeat would eventually be killed, so I decided to leave him terrorizing Phil in Junktown. Plus I liked the idea of None travelling alone without having to worry about others dying under his watch.
In the later game, I had None participate in the Adytum Massacre of 2163 that resulted in the deaths of a number of important town members such as Joe Zimmerman, Smitty, and local fortune teller Chuck. The resulting massacre was the event that freed the citizens from the Regulators. None was also instrumental in relieving Junktown from the corrupting influence of Gizmo, as well as the Skulz Gang with the help of a local guard by the name of Lars.
None also became an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel, where with the help of a small contingent of Paladins, destroyed a military facility in the north west of the region. This would prevent the creation of additional Super Mutants, but the Overseer felt that the Master of the Super Mutants would need to be taken out as well.
None eventually discovered the location of a figurehead in the Children of the Cathedral, who was most likely this Master that the Overseer was after. As the game progressed, I had None pick the "Swift Learner", "Educated", and "Action Boy (2)" perks, with my final stats as follows:
You will have to excuse the Perception of 1 (V.Bad) as I took this image after the final boss fight and I had suffered "Eye Damage," otherwise my Perception would have been at 7. I read that level 21 is apparently some kind of holy grail, but I only read that after I finished killing off the Deathclaw and her eggs, so they would no longer infinitely respawn in East LA.
On Sunday July 10th, 2163, 583 days after leaving Vault 13, now armed with additional technological support from the Brotherhood of Steel (which included medical enhancements to his perception, endurance, agility and strength), None was able to infiltrate the Church of the Children of the Cathedral and was able to take down the creator of the Super Mutant army.
Now, my tactic for fighting The Master was pretty cheap. Since the battles in-game are turn based, I would save after every successful attack. If my attack missed, I would reload from my previous save. Sure it is not the most ethical thing to do when going up against the game's boss, but it is what I decided to do, rather than spend another I do not know how many hours grinding out a couple of levels in order to maybe kill The Master or have him kill me with a critical hit; although with the power armor, taking damage from The Master's twin gatling guns never did a whole lot of damage. It was primarily the two Super Mutants who came at None from behind that I found troublesome. There did seem to be a glitch of sorts that occurred during this battle. Whenever I reloaded after a really bad miss or being killed, the two Super Mutants would start out back towards the entrance of the long hallway, or they would be where I had left them in the middle of my turn, but they would start their turn by walking forward and shooting at me.
After killing The Master, the two Super Mutants were in the hallway and while attacking them, I noticed too late that an auto destruct sequence had begun and the entire complex exploded before I had time to escape the basement of the cathedral. Upon restarting and planning on running past the Super Mutants at all costs, I discovered that after killing The Master (again), that the hallway was clear of any additional enemies. My escape turned out to be a lot less dramatic, but a lot easier.
As None made his way back to Vault 13, an epilogue of sorts was given for each of the settlements in the Wasteland. What makes me think that the final result of each of these areas can change based on your actions was that I was told that, with the exception of Junktown which was being watched over by Killian Darkwater, all of the other settlements had been invaded/taken over/pillaged by Super Mutant armies. This ending made me a little sad, although ultimately confused as I had heard from a traveling musician that Shady Sands had been overrun by Mutants, but when I "ran" to investigate, I found the citizens living quite peacefully without any interference by Mutants.
Once reaching home, None was greeted by the Overseer of Vault 13 and after a bit of one sided conversation, None was told that he could no longer come back to the vault and was banished out of fear of how his presence might inspire the rest of the dwellers in the vault to explore the Wasteland.
None apparently also got rid of his power armor at some point, but I completely understand the power of the image of the Vault Dweller walking off into the distance with practically nothing more than what he wore when he first left home.
Things that surprised me was how many well known actors did voices in this first game in a series. Ron Perlman did the opening monologue, with Keith David, Jim Cummings, Tress MacNeille, Clancy Brown, Tony Jay, Richard Dean Anderson, Pamela Adlon, Brad Garrett, Richard Moll, Tony Shalhoub, and David Warner. I feel like it is quite an impressive line up. If you do not recognize the name, go ahead and follow the links to IMDb and you will most likely recognize them by their body of work.
The music was quite subtle, with the only track that stands out in my mind was the track played in Shady Sands, titled "Second Chance" on the soundtrack. The music was composed by Mark Morgan and while I could list a handful of his past projects, just follow the link if you are at all interested. For the most part though, the music was very ambient and atmospheric, with very little melody, but considering that Fallout takes place in the Wasteland, the choice was very appropriate.
In the end, I spent anywhere between 25 - 30 hours. Storywise, I was very taken in with the world. I could see creating a new character and playing through a second time with varying starting stats, skills and feats. One noticeable difference is that if your character has below a certain level of intelligence, communicating with NPCs becomes a difficult task. It would be amusing to go through an entire game without fully knowing what your character was saying, and only being able to assume based on the response of the person you are talking to. It might also be fun to play a fully evil character who sides with the Skulz and Gizmo. So replayability is a plus and will probably happen after I make my way through the rest of the games in the Fallout series.
I guess I should say, although it is fairly obvious at this point, that I wholeheartedly recommend Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role Playing RPG, but only if you feel that you can play through turn based battles in an isometric view, and with a constant feeling that you might end up mucking up your dialogue choices resulting in not being able to complete an objective leading to the death of all your friends and family in Vault 13. Just plan on taking 20+ hours especially on your first playthrough as well as depending on how you roleplay your character. I do not know how interesting the end-game will be as I will feel that I will need to end up with a character clad in power armor and an initiate of the Brotherhood of Steel in order to survive the two end battles.
It's a fun game in a bleak familiar world.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
