I loved this game
I am bored of all the cookie-cutter games. Ever since Black Isle went out of business, this type of RPG game has faded away. It's like a Baldur's Gate, but with a sci-fi setting and a dark sense of humor. Somehow, I missed this and its prequel back in the 90s. A friend recommended it so I picked both up on eBay, and I am so glad I did.
The basic premise is that there was a nuclear war, and most people dies or became somewhat mutated scavengers. A lucky few survived for generations in underground vaults. When one of them breaks down, they send a warrior/scientist out to find some spare parts, and he or she gets wrapped up in all kinds of plots and sub-plots. Along the way, there is an awful lot of shooting and bloodshed. That's the premise of Fallout.
Fallout 2 is similar, but the character is a descendant of that original warrior/scientist, again on a quest to find some technological item to save his people, and along the way, he gets deep into evil plots, and a bunch of people ask him to do random quests along the way.
Like any of these RPG games, you can turn down the quests, but why? It gives you XP, you find better weapons and armor, and it's entertaining to see what the programmers came up with. So your path is fairly guided. But the story is fun, and it is very entertaining for me to blast my way through hordes of bad guys and mutant creatures.
I like the spirit of fun through the whole thing. I also like how it can be saved and put down for a while if real life intrudes. I like the quests, the level of difficulty, and the array of weapons and skills.
I dislike the graphics, obviously. This game was made in 1998, so don't expect to be blown away. It wasn't top of the line then, either. But I'm not a graphics-loving person, so that's okay. The only time that comes into play is when trying to find an item to pick up or use that's vital to finishing a quest, but it's so hard to see because the graphics are just average. The other thing is a common complaint in any of these games, that sometimes the order of quests and missions gets a little messed up, and there is an assumption that you are taking every quest and have done so in the correct order.
But overall, it's a 5 out of 5. A lot of fun, and if you have any appreciation at all of games like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape:Torment, Neverwinter Nights, or Grim Fandango, you'll like this.Read full review
