Years ago I played F1 up to getting the water chip, but that was as far as I got. I am playing F3 on and off and would like a better understanding of just what all went down in the first game, especially what is the deal with the mutants. Is there alot of content after I get the chip to make me reinstall and start F1 over? Thanks

There's a LOT of content, especially in regards to the mutants. You're missing out big time. Fallout 1 has one of the richest, most interesting, and most surprisingly deep stories i've ever played in a game. It's phenomenal.

You learn ALL about the mutants origins and their motivations.

Thanks - I will have to get back at it then

It should be said that Fallout 3 is the vision of a group of people who did not understand Fallout 1 and 2 at all and made their own thing, borrowing ideas freely but hammering them into their own lousy story.

I have a personal moral objection to just spoiling the rest of the game for you, and I sincerely hope you take the time to finish it. It's worth doing.

Yup, without spoiling. I think the water chip bit is.. maybe 1/3 of the game?
Depending on how much one sidesteps before getting it.

Despite this, I'm having a lot of fun with Fallout 3 and enjoying the nods to both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 in the game. It's not perfect, but it's really not all that bad either. Looking forward to playing New Vegas when it arrives in the mail tomorrow. It's the only Fallout game I haven't played and finished (aside from Fallout Tactics). =)

Flynn

I loved exploring the wasteland in FO3, especially wiping out raider camps and such, ghoul sewers not so much.

A word of warning though. Get your FO3 fun before playing NV, because Vegas will pretty much spoil the fun for you. I have a real hard time trying to adjust to FO3 after experiencing shooting with iron sights.

I had played and finished FO3 a couple years back on the PS3, but for some reason never picked up NV. So, all I'm doing now is trying to get through the DLC missions as I hadn't played those before. NC is supposed to arrive today, so it may be difficult to resist the urge to install and run it at least once, heh.

Flynn

SPOILERS:

-yo master mutants cant breed
- :(
-k bye

The endgame was probably the worst thing about the first Fallout, but it had nice backstory and lore. At least it wasn't Lawful Stupid vs Chaotic Stupid like in Fallout 3. One of the major things that bothers me about that game is how misrepresented the Brotherhood of Steel is. If anything, the Outcasts are the true Brotherhood.
Edit: also one of the reasons people think FO's story is deep is because you affect the world. Tim Cain said he didn't liked FO3's ending because it didn't made him feel his actions had real consequences in the world. In the end, whether you blow up Megaton or not is not reflected in the game's ending, which is kinda sad because it's one of the few real moral choices in the game.

I may have oversold it a little bit, but i wouldn't say it's extremely over the top to describe it how i did. The motivations for the mutant leader went far beyond your standard thin videogame villain cause. You got stuff like eugenics and whatnot being dealt with here. Far more going on then your usual videogame plot, which is why i said it's one of the deepest. The richest comes with the nature of this type of game, there simply being so much meat to it and os many options, i'd apply that to a lot of open world games, but Fallout especially i think really nails what makes such games so appealing on the story front.

I like Fallout as much as the next guy, and while it is a well told story about the apocalypse, it's hardly "one of the deepest". The fact that it is better than most videogame stories is nice, but that's the baseline for having a story being appreciable at all, and that alone hardly puts it on a level comparable to things like PST or Silent Hill 2.