Thursday, January 15, 2015

Fallout - 20/20 hours

After beating Fallout, I was somewhat dismayed to learn that I only played the game for 13 hours. I remember it being longer. Undoubtedly, this is largely due to the natural time dilation that comes with memory. When you are young, the days seem longer and the open world games seem huge (perhaps, one day, even Skyrim will feel small to me).

Fallout was one of my first open world games. I want to say Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis was earlier, but that one I only rented, and its open world bona fides are a kind of shaky. So if Fallout was not my first, it was at least early enough to be before I had the genre figured out. I can easily believe I spent more than 20 hours on it way back in 2002 (I can't remember precisely when I first got the game, but I do know I was still using Windows 98, so it had to be sometime before 2006).

However, I do think that much of my first exploration of the Fallout universe was spent in fumbling. Not knowing where to go. Not knowing how to use items, or the benefits of raising my skills. I think I solved the combat system pretty early, but navigating the map to get the water chip in a timely fashion while leaving the wasteland a better place was something I had to learn the hard way. So many times Vault 13 withered away for lack of water. It was only lately that I discovered what it takes (access to the Fallout wiki) to be a true hero.

With my last seven hours, I went through the game a second time. I did not quite beat it, but that is mostly because I wanted to try a different approach, one that necessitates a great deal of saving and reloading. I decided to tackle the game like a ninja, focusing on stealth, pickpocketing, and dispatching enemies from afar.

The difference was not as great as I'd hoped. I had a bunch more ammo and equipment in the early game, but eventually became so laden with loot that I wound up having to barter instead of steal just so I could clear space in my inventory. Also, I'm not sure if the stealth system actually works (it could be that I never got it high enough to make a difference, but seeing as how my rating was 140, I doubt it).

I think, looking back from a position of having played all but one of the Fallout games (Brotherhood of Steel, for the console) and beaten all but two of them (the other unfinished one being Fallout: Tactics), I can say that the original Fallout feels like a prototype. It probably has the most solid story of any of the Fallout games, but later games would take its ideology of limitless choice and run with it. There are too many skills that barely see any use. There is too great a homogeneity to the challenges and puzzles. Even the world-building is kind of basic. The game sets up the pillars of the Fallout setting, but they are lightly sketched. But most of all, Fallout is a game that is, for all its lack of hand-holding, surprising linear. I built a totally different character, with a totally different approach to challenges, yet my path through the game was almost exactly the same.

That's not a complaint, by the way. Fallout is an absolute classic. I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in the evolution of the western crpg. However, it is definitely an acorn, out of which will grow a mighty oak of a franchise.

(Short Programming Note - I thought doing a screenshot LP of the series would be fun. After finishing a whole game that way, it turns out it wasn't. I'll stick with the series, but go back to my old format. There will still probably be the occasional screenshot).

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