User Reviews (11 - 21 of 104)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

The Best RPG ever made

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First a little warning, this game is not for children, it uses adult themes and language. I played the first title of this saga years ago, at the time I bought it because the title won "RPG of the year" award by popular PC magazines. It was merely out of curiosity that I stumbled on the game that has changed my view of RPG standards. These games can justly be called the "mother of all RPGs" its creators have made the titles of Bauldur's gate, Archanum, Torment and many other games (it is sad that they cannot get along long enough to make a third Fallout). Till now, whenever I play an RPG title, I think back to Fallout and compare it. To be honest, I have yet to see one that can match it. Let me explain:

The secret of the success of both titles was not in the graphics, game play or the fighting sequences, the secret to its success was mainly due to the rich storyline. This game played very much like a movie or a novel except you are in the driver seat. There is nothing linear about this game, it does not play like a normal RPG where doing certain missions propel you forward. This game engulfs the player in its quests and provides an endless spider web of opportunities to change the story. It was essentially the only game I have ever played that possessed a true "open ended" game engine. You can, literally, become a sharif, a drug dealer, a slaver, a ranger, a mob made-man fighting against other mob families, a prostitute, a porn star, a mercenary, a thief, a person with a bounty on their heads, a child murderer, a bandit, a cattle driver and even lead a small army... Every city you enter provides you with endless opportunities and jobs. It will take 40-50 hours each game and you will appreciate every minute of it.

The storyline of the first fallout is that you are chosen among the vault dwellers (humans cooped up in Vaults for long periods of time to escape the nuclear holocaust) to search for a new "water chip" essential for the survival of the vault. You spend some time searching for it in the begining but the story does not end there. The second game involves the descendants of the original vault dweller (hero of the first game) 80 years later and their quest to find the "Holy GECK" which is a device that turns the scorched wasteland into the Garden of Eden. The game designers have very cleverly linked both games together in away that it makes you feel you are playing one single game. Characters from Fallout 1 are old and crusting on Fallout 2 and will happily tell you the tale of the original vault dweller in which you are his/her descendant. A wonderful aspect about this game is that the designers are a crowd of dorks, who happen to be big fans of movies like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Star Trek", there is a bit of subtle humor hidden in the game in the form of "special encounters" which are randomized events occurring while you travel. Their purpose is to make you smile and even laugh at the imagination of the Fallout designers in their quest to pay homage to their favorite shows, something I miss dearly from new RPGs.

The system used for character development is the same as the system used for other RPG with 'perks' thrown in every few levels that give the character extra abilities. You can choose the direction of your character from the beginning but there is no limitation as you can change it later on in the game unlike most other RPG engines. You can choose to have companions (depending on your charisma rating) which is one of the interesting aspect about this game is that they are totally independent in their actions and sometimes even fight among each other, dialogue can be very funny. The combat sequences can be melee or gun power, energy weapons and rocket launchers are my favorite. It is turn-based which means that you have to use a bit of brain with your tactics, unlike hack and slash RPGs.

Bottom line, buy this game and you will find yourself to be one of many who have joined in a cult-like admiration for these titles. How many RPGs do you know of that have Fan-based fiction writing sites lasting for years? Many fans are even making their own storylines based on Fallout Tactics engine now like Fallout Awaken. You will feel sad after beating it once and you will play it again and again as I have. It is simply the best, the king of all RPG's and none who played it can contest that statement.

Almost the best ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Well first of all I don't usually give games good reviews. For the most part while graphics have been getting better over the years, gameplay has generally been neglected. Most games are pretty formulaic and bore me to tears. I'd heard good things about Fallout, and despite great disappointments at the hands of CRPGs, I decided to give it a go. In short I would have to say Fallout is the best RPG game I ever played.

But before I tell you why I liked it so much, I'd better tell you what Fallout is NOT. First off, the graphics suck. It looks like a Super Nintendo game. The fact that everything and everyone looks the same does not contribute very much to the immersion factor. Second, it is not a real action packed game. The combat system is turn-based, and is pretty good but not great. From reading reviews I got the impression somehow that I would be sitting in a window sniping people, or be pinned down by automatic gunfire in epic gun fights in the city streets. Well it is not like that. For the most part battles are fought at close range out in the open with gunfire taking off a portion of your hitpoints. It's not very realistic and doesn't really get the blood flowing. At first I was disappointed, but comparing it to other RPGs, it is pretty good. There are a lot of weapons you can use and specialize in, and you can aim for specific parts of the body which is cool. Finally, this is not a power gamers' game. It's way too easy, and you don't really need to level up. At about level 3, you are in good shape. It can conceivably be beaten in a hard-core weekend. I want to emphasize that this is not the perfect game and in fact has many major flaws.

So, you might be asking, what is GOOD about Fallout? Well basically it has the best world in an RPG ever. You see, the problem with CRPGs is that they have to fit the entire game world on your hard drive. So basically, the game can either be broad in the sense that you can do whatever you want but nothing matters (Baldur's Gate), or you can have a game that is really detailed and thick but you don't have any free will (Final Fantasy). Fallout takes a completely different route in that you have a staggering amount of free will that actually affects the outcome of the game. In Baldur's Gate you could make a lot of choices at the beginning regarding your character and later which pointless side quest you wanted to do, but for the most part these choices were superficial. Character class determined in what manner you were going to kill everyone in a dungeon, and statistics determined the difficulty. Your actions are pooled into a "Reputation" modifier which helps determine whether people like you or not. Your race and gender makes no difference. Well, in Fallout character creation is a blast. What's so special about it is the ability to really create a unique character that's taylor made to how you want to play the game. NPCs will react to you in all different manners depending on what you've done and what you've said. Basically what you get that no other game gives you is a chance to truly role-play and make decisions about how you want to handle a situation besides just walking around killing bad guys. Fallout is also quite a funny game at times without making fun of itself which is something you almost never see in RPGs. In short it's the closest to being 'in' a game that I've ever been.

But my favorite thing about Fallout is, whatever path you take, it plays like a good movie. There are all sorts of epic battles and confrontations, good atmosphere and cool characters, and even a bit of a morality theme in there. The best stories of any medium are the ones that illicit an emotional response, where you learn something about life and yourself. Fallout gives you a bit of that. So while it may look like crap and even play like crap sometimes compared to the Diablos, Baldur's Gates, and Final Fantasies, it is just a far better RPG.

Fallout 2 is your classic sequel, introduction to ending. It's the same ideas, but bigger, harder, funnier, everything makes a little less sense, more guns and more explosions. It is better game than the original in that you can do so much more and is more fun, but well, to it bluntly, the end is crap. There's no getting around it. It has Christmas deadline written all over it. Right before the final level of the game I would have flat out told you it was the best game ever made. But the best I can say now is, it's a good game but not great. And that is just a darn shame. I really can't ever emphasize that enough. In a nutshell the game lacks the cohesiveness of the original, the "movie" feel, that a good ending could have brought, and that the rest of the game seemed to promise.

That said, Fallout is still the king of CRPGs. Highly recommended.

Best computer RPG ever.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I like this game so much I've played it from start to finish about 5 times (and didn't even play it for the first time until 2003!). Fallout is about 8 years old at this point and it still ranks as the best computer RPG of all time. The atmosphere, storyline, and music are all excellent, and the graphics still look good to me. It's a crying shame there aren't more games like this. Forget fantasy and sci-fi RPGs -- let's see some more post-apocalypse scenarios. Fallout is far superior to anything else I've ever played, new or old. I'm glad I found it.

Survive, If You Can....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Fallout and Fallout 2 are, hands down, some of the best RPG games in the history of PC gaming. If you're into RPG's, and you don't already have a copy of either one of these, I SERIOUSLY recommend picking both of them up.

Fallout takes you to post-apocalyptic California, where you have survived as a third generation child of an underground bunker called Vault 13. Your elder comes to you to tell you that the water purification system has malfunctioned, and you need to find a replacement chip to fix it. From there, all hell breaks loose as you battle raiders, monsters, and a slew of mutated creatures, all changed by the severe radiation poisoning the world has been left with. Pick up weapons, develop your skills, and explore the landscape for answers to your people's salvation.

Fallout 2 takes you some 80 years after the first title. You are a decendent of the hero of the first Fallout game, and need to help your village survive a horrid drought by finding a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK). This item will help your people to grow new crops, and bring a new era of civilization to the tribals. After that, you're left to find answers to where the sacred Vault 13 is, and whether or not you can get a GECK to save your people with. You'll battle similar enemies from the first title, plus an assortment of new baddies. You'll get some different weapons, and the command interface is a little more user friendly.

The best part of these games is the freedom elements. Don't want to complete that mission? Then don't! Many of the quests are optional, so you can choose which ones you want to complete. You can attack just about anyone (provided you can fight off their friends), steal from people, or be a helpful vigilante and bring justice to the wastelands.

This game should only be viewed by mature audiences because of sexual situations and coarse dialogue. So, if you're 17 or older and want a game that you'll play again and again, pick up Fallout and Fallout 2.

Cross between Wasteland and Operation Overkill

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: August 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I waited a long time to get Fallout and I am not disappointed. I even got Fallout 2 with this deal. Fallout is a very good RPG.
If you ever played and liked the old school games Wasteland or the BBS classic Operation Overkill you will like Fallout. Fallout adds the modern graphics and sound to the post-appocalypse scenarios of those old classics. By exploring the radioactive wasteland above ground, you maintain supplies and the needs of your comrades in an underground survival vault. It is a skill based game, where you get a better at fighting, healing, etc., as you get experience. The interface is a little unusual, but it suited me just fine, and seemed logical enough. I was also pleased to find that the game plays well (not just hobbles along) on my system even though it is much below the stated minimuum system requirements. Many of the ActiveX based games are full of bugs, in my opinion, but Fallout has not crashed or did anything quirky on my computer even one time. I think reviewers do not spend enough time on faulty programming-- I don't care how pretty a game is on the box, if it don't work right it is no fun for me. Fallout works just great.

Classic games, but...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

While these games are extremely fun and set in an interesting and rich "Mad Max" type world, I am new to the RPG scene and the lack of a manual with this bundle and the inherent complexity of a Role Playing Game had me confused on everything from understanding and choosing the characteristics of my character to comprehending the interface. I eventually coped and have learned a little from websites of fans of the series, but I can't help but think that I am missing something from the game that would have been enhanced with a manual. However, these are great games and have landed on most "Top 10 Games of All Time" lists from experts in the computer gaming business. You can't go wrong for 10 bucks. If you don't own these already, buy them.

Dryman

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

both these games are great and very replayable. you can be either a good guy or bad' theres always more than one way to do things and there just both the most fun games ive ever played.Thay are funny and you can do just about anything you can think of to do like get marryed and devorced, smoke jet and get loaded,become a boxer and bite the other guys ear off,become a porn star,become a made man. Its endless how much they put into this game you can play it five times and not do everything possable.

only 10 bucks?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: January 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

uhh... This is such a good deal I don't see why you people don't just buy the game now and ask questions later.

These 2 games come for a total of 10 bucks. When most sites are charging over 20 for just one of them.

So, unless you are absolutly nuts go buy this game right now!

FALLOUT ONE: CALIFORNIA GOES POST-NUKE

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: January 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The first Fallout is arguably the best computerzed role playing game ever made. This is for a reason that this is both, a non-linear game (that is a game in which you can go anywhere and do anything), and because it has a definite push - a series of objectives with a deadline and condiitons, that will alter what happens later on in the game. This is so much more advanced than most of the typical sword and sorcery RPG's, where you essentially fight a progressive series of stronger and stronger villains that lead up a trail of crumbs to your nemesis, that the game is usually referred to dergoatorily as "linear" and the only resemblence to a role playing game is in character development. Because of that quality alone, that there is an open world to explore, that there are objectives and deadlines with long term consequences, the Fallout One gets its accolade as the best computerized RPG.
Unlike Wasteland, its predecessor (See my review Aftermath! Ascendant for a comprehensive pre-history of this game genre), this is not the computerized paper and pencil game, Fallout uses the role playing game rules (you don't shoot an object on the screen and the game does not take place in real time. You fie at an object, the computer generates a random number and compares it with your odds of hitting that target), but the game is told entirely on computer via text and graphics. The game is totally driven by the point and click environment using a vriety of cursors and sub-menus to deliver an incredible interface that lets you fight, explore and play the game set in the fascinating world of post nukewar california. The story is told through its graphics, short films, the written documents that the player recovers and studies, and through interaction with other characters, captured from real life actors and animated by computer. Perhaps the only weakness of the game is that it's dialogue interface is open ended and operates on keywords, which does not allow you to role play much with your character, but can really explore and meet the natives of this hostile wasteland!
The skill and sophistication of the artists and the writers who created the game clearly shines through. The place is apparently North America, but it's not quite the place that we know. From the opening film we see US annexing Canada in the months preceding the fatal nuclear exchange. The game is set in an alternative universe where the cold war and the bomb has apparently run amok. Unlike the rest of the games of this type,it draws heavily on the culture of The Bomb and it subtly satirizes the 'Fifties. The creators of this game had done their research and thre in the vestiges of the Soviet, as well as our own cold-war era Sci-Fi that contributes greatly to this "Something is weird not quite right with this palce" other worldly feel that this game world possesses. The artists who designed this game did a great job syncretising the California culture through the nuclear apocalypse. The depth and complexity of this world is incredible. In the twisted mirror of the game you see reflections of Mc Carthyism,street punk of Haight and Ashbury, the latest migration trends, new age philosophy goen radioactive and the urban guerrillas of the sixties. The context in which this role playing game takes place is incredible. The more you know about the world and society, the more you will get out of this game. All of this is translated beautifully into the game terms. The underground shelter of a utopian society in which you live has lost its ability to purify water (there we go with this California business again: water is an issue!). You, the Vault Dweller will be the first in decades to venture into the world Out There, with only a sketchy information about a sister fallout shelter a few days journey to the east. Good luck as the heavy door slams behind you! No wonder they got the Game of the Year award in 1997!
For my take on Fallout TWO see FalloutTWO: Biblical Wanderings.

A pair of classics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You really can't go wrong with this bundle at this price. Fallout and Fallout 2 are two of the best CRPGs ever released, especially over the past several years. The world of Fallout is large and interesting. Both games are backed by strong and original storylines (although the first is better than the second), but don't force you into linear gameplay. The numerous side quests and vast selection of character attributes you can develop provide you with so many options you'll probably want to play through each game several times, and each will be as rewarding as the first. If you're an RPG fan and don't already have these games in your collection, what's stopping you?

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions