Fallout Series Retrospective

Ten weeks playing nothing but Fallout. And I could have easily spent 10 more. I love these games, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm glad I finished them. I've been aching to get my hands on a more casual game for over a month, not because of any particular dissatisfaction with what I was doing, but merely as a change of pace. The absolute best part of this whole blog project is that I have the perfect excuse to indulge my taste for diversity, so playing a long series back-to-back like this has been kind of a bummer.

But only kind of, because with the exception of Fallout Tactics (which I'm prepared to admit is better than my first impression would indicate), I thoroughly enjoyed all of the Fallout games. Played together like this, it's easy to see that the series has actually maintained quite a consistent tone throughout its various incarnations. The timeline in the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 was a little weird, but it all nonetheless felt like a single world.

I started playing this series with the thought that I would break from my usual format and do something different. I was initially very excited about this plan, because I thought it would be a HUGE EVENT (or at least, as huge an event as could be expected for a blog that has, at most, two dozen readers), but I gave it up because it turned out to be a lot of work for little payoff. In retrospect, I'm a little embarrassed that I even tried.

Still, if you never try anything new, you never learn.

Now that it's all over, I'm feeling relieved. I decided, when starting this blog, that I would play series' together, in order to get a direct sense of the scope and evolution of the series as a whole. I think that was probably the right decision, but I have to admit, the Fallout series, with its five games, was one that filled me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, awesome, it's Fallout. On the other, I was committing myself to a long project-within-a-project, and there was no telling what that would do to my attention span.

It turns out both feelings were justified. I had a lot of fun with these games. There were also times when I felt my patience getting strained. On the balance, I'd say the good outweighed the bad, though. Playing the games like this made them into a sweeping, multi-generational epic that connected me to the story and the world in a way that I've never experienced playing them one at a time.

That said, I'm not eager to do it again any time soon. The Stronghold series, in particular, is making me very nervous. That's six games, and I've never played any of them, so I have no idea if this particular impulse purchase was an inspired choice or a lurking pit of despair. . .

But you know what, having a huge new block of red on my completed games list feels pretty damned good.