I only played FO1, and never beat it so I can't really comment there. I suspect I will like FO1 better though, I tend to like smaller games where I can keep the entire game in my head.

Kq3 is the best king's quest though, followed very closely by kq6, just because the protagonist is a lot deeper than any of the others. And the magic is fun!

Fallout 1. Everything good about has already been mention and the timer really isn't a problem. You can do absolutely everything in 4 months ingame and you're not even rushing.

Though i love both, i prefer the second as i feel the world is "richer". Thre are a lot more possibilities to have fun.

And you GET A CAR :)

I found Fallout 1 dry and not quite so imaginative and inventive as Fallout 2. It also tended to pull more punches, in that it tended to not portray humanity as the absolute monster that it was portrayed as in Fallout 2 (see: The Enclave).

Fallout 1 felt more typical than Fallout 2. It had a mutant bad guy named 'The Master', it had eeevil super mutants, and it was really a very cliche game. It had some nice branching quests, but it didn't have a lot of depth. The characters, especially, were lacking in depth. It was fun, but despite taking itself more seriously than Fallout 2, I felt that FO2 was by far the more... how can I put this? Perhaps intellectual is the best word. Despite not taking itself seriously, FO2 was the far more intellectual game.

But that's what was so clever about Fallout 2; it was cheesy and it had its typical Fallout B-Movie moments, and it even had some pop culture references, so it could make you laugh, but it could also make you think, and on times it would seemingly go out of its way to get you angry/annoyed/offended/upset. One great instance was the deathclaws of Vault 13. They were really nice guys, you quickly learn to look past their bestial appearance and find that they're good, ethical, kindly people. In fact, given the chance, the might've been perhaps the best hope for the future of the wastes, since every FEV mutated deathclaw seemed to have a leaning toward ethics. But then the Enclave turns up to exterminate most of them. That's the bastardry of humanity for you.

I kind of liked it for that, it wasn't afraid to portray humanity as a massive pile of douchebags, and it wasn't at all bothered by sharing the notion that non-human entities could be superior to us. These are rare ideas for videogames. And the thing is, FO2 had a lot of this sort of thing, it gave it real depth, but a lot of people don't want depth in their games, not even their RPGs, so it makes people balk. But FO2 was the spirit of Fallout for me. It was cheesy, yet it was intelligent, it could bring out a massive range of emotions in me, and many scenes from the game would linger in my mind. And if I managed to do well by people, if I too was ethical, then the ending would be a real high. In fact, the ending provided by killap's patch (and later, the Restoration Project) has been one of the more memorable RPG experiences for me.

It's amazing, really. FO2 can end on such a note of hope. Yes, humanity, biggest pile of douchebags on the planet, but sometimes we can get things right, and we can do well by other people. It was really a tale of all of our flaws, and it was a challenge to the player to see if they could look past those flaws to actually be something decent, to be ethical, to have as much depth to them as the game did. Of course, you could just be a shallow old abomination if you wanted, and go around killing everything, the game allowed for that, too. You could even act in the interests of the Enclave.

FO2 was a brilliant example of how an RPG can leave a lasting effect, and for me it's up there with the likes of Planescape: Torment and Mask of the Betrayer. By comparison, FO1 just felt kind of shallow, like that depth was missing, like everything was so... typical. I think the problem with FO1 was that it was predictable. I pretty much guessed how the story was going to go early on, I guessed that the vault dweller would be kicked out of the vault for having been too corrupted by the vile, evil outside world, I guessed how the endings would go, and really, it had no secrets for me, no surprises. FO2 was different, it impressed me. And that's no small feat. FO2 wasn't typical.

I suppose if you like more unchallenging, everyday, typical RPGs - if Baldur's Gate is your cup of tea, then you're going to like Fallout 1 the best. If you're more intellectually inclined, you like to be surprised, and you enjoy things being off the wall and not conforming, and you can handle being offended occasionally - if Planescape: Torment is your species of kidney, then you're going to sing the praises of Fallout 2.

I don't think fans of either game will ever see eye to eye for pretty much that reason. :p

Apparently this was not true originally! I have only recently learned that there was a time limit for the second part of Fallout 1 as well, but it was removed in some of the later patched versions. You can restore the time limit with some of the mods people have made for the game (or even optionally make the time limit even more strict). Check out this thread for a quick discussion of it:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/fallout_series/time_limit_in_fallout_1

Count me in the group preferring Fallout. I like it more because I played it first, so this was the game that set the tone for all my Fallout experiences to follow. Everything was new and fresh; the wasteland a world of mystery and opportunity waiting to be explored. I am sure that had I played the second game first I'd feel the same about it.

I found Fallout 2s difficulty jumped right around. After I was done with the Klamath quests and such I found it near impossible to get to Vault City, and after that to New Reno and other places. I liked how it was more open ended and there was no time limit though.

I don't think Fallout 1's shortcomings were intellectual failings.
Addressing Vagrant directly, the notion that there are beings morally superior but repugnant to humans is not unique to Fallout 2, nor particularly shocking in a work of science fiction. If anything, it pales utterly before the more nuanced depictions of other intelligent races in works such as Dragon Age or the writing of David Brin. Fallout 2 managed other intellectual triumphs outside this cliche, but they did not impress me as much as Fallout 1's attention to biological detail.

I like to couch this as an exercise in contrast.
In Parasite Eve, there's a scene where Dr. Klamp explains that the present circumstances aren't unique: that a woman with super-duper mitochondria rampaged about in Japan and had an evil super-baby. However, the evil super-baby died because the mitochondria from the mother and the father were in conflict. Therefore, he had to produce sperm, his own sperm specifically, which had no mitochondria so that his conflicting mitochondria wouldn't interfere with Eve's baby.
That scene hurt to watch. Male gametes have mitochondria in the tail, but those mitochondria don't contribute to the zygote. Mitochondrial DNA carries matrilineally. I learned this in high school, and was unnecessarily reminded afterward by watching television that talks about forensics.
Another major premise of Parasite Eve is that mitochondria divide each time our cells do, giving more opportunity over the generations for mutation and evolution. This premise fails, however, because all those mutations are reset to the point where the eggs budded off during meiosis, which in human females is not a terribly ongoing process. As such, there's only a short period of mitotic division before the body halts the process by letting the eggs lay dormant in the ovaries. This would significantly slow meaningful change.
Aside from the comparatively acceptable break from reality that mitochondria don't set people on fire; that they lack brains, or evidence of collective action; that mitotic division actually prompts considerably less mutation and change than meiotic division... These I can accept for a good story. But the writers of Parasite Eve were not content with minor breaches of realism. Indeed, we players were made to slog through a considerable amount of dialogue with absolutely no credibility whatsoever.
And we couldn't skip it. These scenes are unskippable. To continue play, or (as is encouraged) to play the game over again, you must endure them as they tell you about the wonders of the mitochondria, how long they've had to evolve compared to mere humans, and how crucial it was that this scientist masturbate furiously with millions of dollars in grant money and years of time.

Now we turn to Fallout.
The Glow, previously known as the West-Tek Research Facility, is a blasted and heavily damaged military and scientific base in the distant reaches of the map. While you are encouraged to enter and penetrate its first floor, the reasons for going deeper are not immediately obvious. You aren't required to come within fifty miles of The Glow in order to win the game. Its first floor exists to expand your gameplay and equipment options. Its other five floors are no less irradiated and become increasingly difficult to penetrate, and exist only to add depth to the game's story and setting.
In this place, deep within, you can learn the secrets of the Pan-Immunity Virion Project, later known as the FEV. The breaks from reality in this detailed scientific account are limited to the notion of chemically binding two DNA strands together to produce a new molecule immune to natural and artificial viruses; and that any genetic modifications carried by the artificial FEV may cause the creatures so affected to become huge, green, and monstrously powerful, and in the same generation as initial exposure. (For story reasons experienced players will understand, this last part is especially important.)
Its well grounded ideas include the following:
The FEV interferes with the phase of cell division known as anaphase, after the replication of DNA has taken place but before the nucleus fully divides. This is when the FEV binds the DNA into its new molecule, chemically unassailable by viral means because viruses in general aren't adapted to dealing with the new molecule's chemical structure. Anaphase is not exclusive to mitosis, however, and so a potentially major plot point revolves around its non-mitotic uses and the FEV's interference with same.
Humans use viruses to artificially plant alterations in things already. Using a virus (in this case the FEV) as a vector to produce super-human creatures, while almost exaggerated in its affect, is not an invalid concept.
Not all immunities are perfect, and this includes those produced by vaccinations, which themselves are often composed of weakened or dead viruses. The Master and his lieutenant sought Prime Normals, as they called them, or humans who had not been exposed to a damaged form of the FEV due to the nuclear strike, because most humans in the setting suffered brain damage from the body's immune response to the FEV. Those who lived in the Vaults had no immunity, and so suffered no meaningful brain damage from exposure.
This data is not only skippable, it's bloody hard to find. You as the player have to send your character well out of the way, deep into the Glow and delving into various dialogues and computer systems throughout the game, to piece together the setting's science fiction premises. Remarkable care went into them, yet they're window dressing, not interfering with play. If you never want to know these things, you never have to. They only reward curiosity.

Personal opinion follows, and may spark argument.
If Fallout 1 had actually been produced second, after Fallout 2 was used to build experience with the engine and play with its capabilities, then 1 would have been by far the better game. Because Fallout 1 had a more interesting storyline and used cliche to its advantage instead of being used by cliche, it wins on story. Because Fallout 2 has more gameplay depth and better sidequests, it wins on those factors and on replay value.
Both are excellent games, neither to be dismissed.
By a narrow margin, I prefer Fallout 1.

Instead of comparing the games and coming up with a list of pros and cons why one was better then the other you should take this simple yet effective approach. Now this only goes for the die hard fans of both games, not the people who tried out both games but never beat it or really got into it or it was to hard or whatever else. Now, figure out the average amount of hours you put into the first fallout. Now figure the average amount of hours you put into fallout 2.Now think about how many times you have beaten one game over the other (I could count the times i beat the original in my head but you would need a calculator to add up how many times I beat fallout 2) After doing this, set those number to the side and think about which game you would rather play at this exact moment. (this also doesn't go for someone who just beat fallout 2 yesterday as they will obviously want to play the original) I think after comparing these numbers the people defending the original will be somewhat shocked (yes if you haven't figured it out already I like fallout 2 more) . Look, they are both amazing games and while there is good reasons why the original is better it all comes down to which one you have played the most and are still willing to play 13 years later. But I could be wrong, although I doubt it :-)

Although I've probably logged somewhat more hours on Fallout 2, I play through Fallout 1 more often.
You're not wrong, but even by your methodology I mildly favor Fallout 1.

The formula is perfect, it's the humans using it that are at fault :)

I liked Fallout more because it's heavy story. Fallout 2 is great in it's own way.

hey man the numbers don't lie :-P

I really enjoyed Fallout 1, but Fallout 2 just annoyed me. No idea how to get the geckt quest done. Dont care anymore, uninstalled!