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| Fallout Review (unf) by Bill Dungsroman 07/21/2003, 4:28pm PDT | ||||
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| I Hate The Fallout Games
Apocalypse Awhile Back Two things supposedly make the Fallout games unique (at first glance). One is the setting, a grim post-nuclear future where the small number of surviving humans rub elbows with mutated beasts of all types, and live in ruined buildings and rely on a curious combination of old world technology and futuristic science fiction accoutrements. Well, a post-apocalyptic setting isn’t new per se, in fact it’s pretty motherfucking old by book and film standards, but for a computer game it is, I suppose. And the designers have tweaked it enough for it to come off as pretty unique, with added touches of humor and a bizarro 1950’s era theme. The other “original†aspect of the Fallout series is its character system, the nuts and bolts of any RPG. The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system is at its base a variation of the Dungeons and Dragons’ Primary Attributes template, with the attributes being Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. Switch out Perception for Wisdom, Endurance for Constitution, Agility for Dexterity and tack on Luck and Voila! there’s your “new†character system. Well, to be fair, there’ s a lot more to it than that, I just like pointing out how hard the game developers worked to distance themselves from D&D. Why didn’t they just go all the way and call Strength Muscle, Charisma Sexiness, Intelligence Astuteness, change Perception to Sensing and call it the L.A.M.E.A.S.S. system? I smell a copyright! Anyway, the character stuff secondary to the main stats is what distinguishes the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. During the creation of your character, you assign extra points to your main stats, then you get to choose perks (if you want), and distribute a certain amount of points to each of the 20ORSO skills. This skill set is one of the better features of the SPECIAL system, and it’s pretty comprehensive, I’ll give it that. (Due To Plot Restrictions) Only You Can Save Us! After some nifty opening movies setting up the story, (voiced excellently by Ron Perlman, perpetual character actor and one-time star of the gay 80’s drama Beauty and the Beast), your character is given his first big quest, to find a new water-recycling doowhanger for the Vault he lives in. See, humans all ran into these underground fallout shelters, or Vaults, prior to the nuclear apocalypse, and many have lived there ever since, like you and yours. But, thanks to a wacky mix-up, your Vault is in danger, thus you and you alone must venture out into the scary radioactive wastelands to find a new one. I don’t know whether to applaud the makers of this game for coming up with such a pretty original beginning quest, or to put on a reality hat (in the reference of the game world, anyway) and ask Are you fucking KIDDING me!?!?!? Find a fucking vital computer chip specific only to nuclear fallout shelters? And what, ask the guys there if we could borrow it? Even if it’s the back-up? Hey pal, judging by your presence here, we evidently fucking need the back-up, piss off. Obviously, I’m going to have to kill people to complete my mission. That would explain why I’m being shoved out the door with barely any training, armed with a pea-shooter and no armor. Sure, every RPG ever that started on the ground floor for a character does this, but few have immediately saddled me with the onerous task of saving dozens (or hundreds by implication) of people, the only friends and family I’ve ever known. How about a few sessions on the target range with a shotgun at least? If I get to one of these other Vaults and find some hard-core weaponry stocked in them, I’m gonna be back with more than a water chip to lay on you faggots. The over-arching water chip retrieval quest is timed, but you’d have to do some serious dicking around (well, not that serious, but close) to bung it up. Like, say, the first time or two you try to play the game. AAAAAH they’re all dead Would You Like To Reload a Saved Game? Sure I would, but there’s a finite limit of saved games you can have, 10. Apparently, BIS has never seen my saved game folder from any other RPG I’ve ever played. I had more than 10 saved games before I got out of The Friendly Arm Inn in Baldur’s Gate 1, are you fucking kidding me? Oh well, my first few attempts at building a character suck anyway, I may as well start all the way over. We’re Going Into Combat; Bring a Book. Wandering the wastelands sucks. Without a good TRAVELLING skill (pardon moi if I put most of my points into GUNS and GRENADES and whatnot), you get held up often in pointless melees with nasty critters of all types (well, just two or three, counting humans), just itching to get you to waste your ammo. Plus, turned-based combat guarantees every battle will take forever, as each beastie gets its own little turn to lope towards you. Getting out of the Vault’s cave was one of the most boring experiences I’ve ever had in an RPG, a series of tepid, ass-dragging “battles†with rats. Great, rats, woo. Wait until later, when combat involves a dozen or so participants. Speaking of combat, Fallout is a game destined to test my OCD impulses to the very maximum. |
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