The best classical RPG out there, even in 2004

Fallout 2 is my favourite game. I’ve been gaming on a knowledgeable level since 1998, and I’ve played through masterpieceslike Half-Life, Baldur’s Gate, StarCraft, Age of Empires II, Baldur’s Gate II, Civilization 3, Grim Fandango, and Jedi Knight, just to name a few of my more elite games. But Fallout 2 outdoes them all, even its excellent predecessor. The secret of its success, IMHO, is its remarkable originality and daringness. Absent are the usual RPG elements; mana, wizards, steel plated knight and grimy castles. Not that those are bad, but they’re in very abundant supply. Instead, Fallout 2 is set in the near future: a post-apocalyptic world devoid of glamour or elegance. Shanty towns, ragged hookers, seedy drug addicts, small gangster overlords, and various mutants run amok. In place of swords, you have guns and other more modern weapons. Some examples are Desert Eagles, Shotguns, Combat Knives, Sledge Hammers, Bazookas, Flame Throwers, Gauss Rifles, Laser Gatlings, and Power Fists. I can’t tell you how fun it is to use handguns in RPG’s, instead of the same old daggers and maces. The best way to describe Fallout 2’s world is a kind of new western frontier. Set in dusty Northern California, with small to moderate towns spaced generously along the land, with cattle caravans and gambling saloons, it’s basically a world of lost civilization. You go into a settlement, do a job, settle some differences by gun-slinging, and off you go. There’s no overseeing federal government or police, it’s a cesspool of survival with rag-tag militias attempting to keep order.

First off, the one of the most important element of an RPG is its story. Without a story, a lengthy RPG game fails to captivate its player. RPG’s are probably the longest single-player games in the world, with 40 hours being a the minimum. Fallout 2 is no short cookie like Fallout. It’s a big game with lots of various places to visit. But does it all link together in a fun way? Well, I wouldn’t say the story is too spectacular. Your tribe, called Arroyo, needs a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, or GECK, in order to ensure their long-term survival. It’s similar to Fallout’s story, where you had to find a water chip to ensure your vault’s long-term survival. Except this time, there’s no time limit. Being such a longer game, a time limit would’ve restricted the freedom which is so vital and to the Fallout franchise. Anyway, the story’s pretty shallow, “just go and get this or we’re dead.” It just serves as a distant beacon so there’s a beginning and an end to this game. There’s no elaborate history, and it’s an excuse for you to get out and learn the smaller, more interesting stories of the outsiders. So while the overall story is ho-hum, the mini-stories of the quests and denizens are very interesting. Warring gangster families, ghoul (mutant) persecution, bridling expansionists, drugged miners, and religious fanatics/posers are all part of the decrepit world in the post-apocalyptic zone. These little stories keep you going, with a good motivation to finish the game to see what your impact on them turns out to be. Fallout 2 has a brilliant ending where the narrator tells the overall effects your actions have done to a settlement, in a slideshow. This sets a wonderful and distinct understanding of the consequences of your actions, and motivates you to play multiple times to see different endings. This is a game where choices do matter, unlike in games like Baldur’s Gate. I must’ve played this game 5 times because of the variable endings. Simply superb.

At the request of a fellow Epinions reviewer, I will give some examples of the multiple endings scenario. The easiest, most obvious situation is in New Reno, where 4 rival gang families all want supreme power yet lack the special scale-tipper named you. Some families are heavily into drugs, others are into alcohol, etc. Depending on which family you help, if you choose to participate in the underworld at all, the future of New Reno will be forever changed. Another example is in a town called Modoc. The denizens of that dusty shanty town are afraid of the dwellers of the Ghost Farm, whom they suspect of killing a fellow farmer. You have a choice of either negotiating some kind of peace or participate in the hunt for those Ghost Farmers. Those are two of the examples that immediately come to mind. There are plenty more, and for each locale you visit, there is usually at least two possible endings for the future of that place.

Secondly, the other really important aspect of an RPG are its characters. RPG’s are a very story-driven genre, and without good characters, good stories can’t be formed. And since I’ve already raved about Fallout 2’s stories, its characters are just as good. There is a carrier-load of different personality types. While none are one-dimensional caricatures, it’s pretty easy to see who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The characters are so effective that many stir strong emotions. First Citizen Lynette, the uber-shrew of Vault City, is so loathsome because of her pretentious air of fraudulent self-importance and skewered bigoted views. She talks big about universal peace and tolerance, yet will reject you as a person should you have a different taste in music or something. I believe every Fallout 2 player has at least once put a cap into her ugly balding head in one of their games, although it accomplishes nothing. That’s how powerful the characters are. There are other great characters in the game that really makes you care about their goals and dreams. Your NPC’s that serve as party members have very endearing qualities; Sulik is the funny-talking tribal who’s destined to become your best friend should he survive, Marcus is the intimidating yet peaceful mutant, Myron is the drug-making ego-driven whippersnapper convinced of his own greatness, and so on. These seem to be the important characters, because they have their own “talking faces.”

Okay, the story is rock-solid and the characters are too. So what’s next? Is the game fun to play? How can a game with a good story and fun characters be boring? Fallout 2 is a very action-oriented RPG, like all good games. Expect to kill a lot of people. It DOES carry an “M” rating. As it’s famously known, Fallout 2 rejected the genre’s conventions of iron weapons and went into a more modern, firearms/energy weapons route, and it works fantastically. There’s a great wealth of weapons for you to try, from pistols to submachine guns, to heavy hardware (flamethrowers, rocket-launchers), to the ultimate energy weapons (gauss rifles, pulse rifles, etc.). There is also lots of melee weapons like Yakuza blades (which are deceivingly powerful) to the more technological Mega Power Fists. You can also go hand-to-hand, although I’ve never tried it. Anyway, the combat is in a turn-based format, meaning it’s more like a chess match than Rock’em-Sock’em robots. You have various action points which you can allocate to various executions to best insure your victory and your opponents’ inglorious demise. Various character upgrades and stats determines how many AP’s you get. Movement, shooting, inventory searching, reloading, etc. all take up some action points. I must say I greatly prefer this system of slow, methodical combat over click-and-observe real-time combat like in Baldur’s Gate. In Fallout 2, I get to see my character dominate by systematically reducing a squad of marauders in gibs. I get to choose what weapon I want to use, I get to point it at the target I want, I get to observe the chances of a hit, and when I click my mouse, I get to see if my shot hits or not. You feel a lot more in control over your character with this system.

It’s quite ironic that a game like Fallout 2, which utilizes an engine made back in 1997, is far more captivating than some of the most realistic 3D games out there. Even though the story is a typical goose chase, the little stories along the way, especially the ones in New Reno, come off as very relevant. Injustices committed by chief characters in the game resonate with the player, unlike in most games (or even real life). Although certainly not as innovative as Fallout, its grand predecessor, Fallout 2 makes fills those little cracks and by the end, you have a superior game and experience.