So I purchased Fallout 1 (and received 2 for free) and am attempting to play through them in order in anticipation of the awesome looking Fallout 3.
My first call for help is...should I have this large overhanging feeling like I have no direction and 0 clue what I'm doing? So far I've just been running from town to town. I realize that I'm looking for a water chip but I've had little to actually do. Any tips for the overwhelmed?
Second, how long are the first two games? Is it practical if I play maybe an hour every other day that I can get to the ending in both games before 3's release?
I will say that I LOVE the atmosphere.
Thanks,
Galacticus.

If you are really in trouble, use the solution,all, one time in life has used a solution;to find one make a simple research in google
For the waterchip a lot of people need of the solution ;)

I understand your pain Galacticus. I suffer from the same thing. Mostly I make a new character and then I die.
Last time I played, I made a character with 1 intelligence and spoke with the northmost guard by the gate at the sand village.. he took me to the radscorpion lair. There, I died w/o saving. So... you know, save often.

Fallout 2 is longer, there is no time limit involved so you're more likely to take on many of the side quests available in the game. It is normal to feel a bit lost when you first start playing, my general strategy is to head where I know I need to go but keep an eye out for towns (green cirlces on your map) and stop at any that are on your current path. There are also lots of comprehensive walkthroughs available if you get really stuck.
As far as finishing both before Fallout 3 (which I believe has an Oct. 28th release date) I would say it's probably pretty unlikely if you only play an hour per day. I've played through Fallout 2 multiple times and I still die when I play it. Enjoy the games, they're both awesome

Fallout is designed to be fairly open, so you decide where and when you want to go anywhere. That said, you should always have a direction for the main quest. If you don't, do your best to finish up the quests in the current area before moving on to another.
For those like me who just want a hint and not a straight-forward walkthrough, check out UHS Hints:
http://www.uhs-hints.com/uhsweb/fallout.php

Fallout 1 tips:
- Tag Small Arms (the most useful since you start with a pistol)
- Lockpicking and Steal are extremely useful in this game. I steal from everyone to get massive amounts of ammo, bottlecaps (money), and stimpacks (health).
- I suggest starting with an Agility of 10. It gives you more action points (shooting a gun takes 5 - so with 10 AP you can shoot twice).
- I don't recommend putting Strength above 6 as you can get Power Armor which increases your Strength by 4. Although depending on how you play the game you may not get this armor until late in the game, in which case put Strength as high as you want.
- Now personally, I don't put points into Charisma or Luck, but this is my own style. I usually use the Gifted trait which increases all of your stats by 1, and then I lower Charisma and Luck. I am able to put most abilities to 10 this way. Charisma also affects how many party members you can take at one time, but I usually only use Ian (from Shady Sands) so I don't mind. Charisma affects your Speech and Barter, but if you Tag Speech then you can offset your low Charisma.
- Take Bloody Mess for a better ending (in my opinion). Don't ask. : )
- Right clicking your weapon switches your firing modes. For 1 AP (action point) more you can do an aimed shot (usually requires a decently high stat for that weapon to use efficiently). Aiming at the weak points increases your critical chance GREATLY. Even with a critical chance of 2% I can critical almost 50% of the time when I aim at the eyes.
- You can use your PipBoy. Use it to rest (be mindful of the time limit), to track your quests (click on STATUS and then the town), etc.
- Ultimately the game is about choices - rather YOUR choices. There is no wrong way to play it (aside from ones that get you killed). Have fun with it.

I appreciate the help everyone.

What you should do? Talk, talk, talk and talk again! You can get information about water chip from sources you would never expect it! You shouldn't run from one town to another: You should scout every corner and talk to absolutly everyone, everywhere, if it's possible, of course, and complete all quests your morale allows you to... Oh, and of course, HOW it allows you to complete it :D

Hi i'm a fallout newb too and the game feels somewhat sluggish and unresponsive. Is it that way or can i do something to improve performance?

I felt the same way,
for some reason it likes to 'think' when switching between your left and right 'hands'
but otherwise, for movement, I told it to always run, and it feels alot better that way.
Otherwise, it works ok, the action point thing sometimes gets on my nerves, especially when I accidentally click on my inventory instead of switch hands. oh well.

The Fallout series can be a little rough for people who are not used to open ended games. Sure a lot of games tout open endedness but Fallout/2 really do it. You are basically tossed into the game world with one main objective and that's it. The original is worse than Fallout 2 for this, because at least in Fallout 2 you have a set destination at the start of the game and a name to get you started on your quest. I can try to offer you a couple pointers for Fallout that should hopefully make your game a bit more enjoyable, so here we go!
First and foremost, to make the first playthrough an easy(er) one you should probably tag small arms, go with an Agility of 10 for the AP, and keep INT above 3 (once you are at or below 3 you lose the ability to talk to most everything in the game). Once you play through the game and get the gist of it you can go back through with a slow/stupid character for laughs or the challenge of it.
In Fallout you want to remember that your quest is to find the water chip. When you reach your first town (which should be Shady Sands, it is just East of Vault 13) you want to stick around until you get some sort of information about water/a water chip. This can be said for every town you come to until you actually find the chip itself. Stay where you are and ask everyone you can find about water/a water chip. It can be a little slow at first, but you really get into the game. Also when you eventually do find the water chip you will feel like Sherlock Holmes. Sure the combat is fun and all but (like Fenixp said) talk talk talk is the name of the game.
I don't want to spoil the game for you (or others who are reading) so I won't go into more detail, but if you want me to I can try to help a little more. Remember that you can use a guide if you want. I didn't my first play through, so it is possible to get through the game without one. I would personally try to get you to stay away from it, just because it takes away a bit of the mystery of the game since you can feasibly run straight from Vault 13 to where the chip is hidden (sure it may be hard, but I've done it on a couple playthroughs :S). If you are stuck in a specific area or just want a little bit more help with something specific feel free to ask. I or someone else will be glad to help you out. Don't be afraid to experiment in the game. You can always reload/restart. I've played through both Fallout/2 at least a dozen times each and tackle it a different way each time!
Hope my post helped at least a little, and wasn't as long and incoherent as I think it is!

Use the steal skill to trade with party members, they won't mind
You can eventually get another point in agility, I won't spoil how unless you want me to, though.
EDIT: Sorry, I missed most of the first question. Party members in Fallout 1 Will really only use weapons and healing items. You can ask them what weapons they're proficient in, they won't use anything else.

1. Like Rollie pointed out they don't use armour and other weapons than those they name.
You can give without going into barter though, right-click to get the arrow, left-click and hold the button down and click the backpack, this will show you your inventory and the item you click in it you'll give to the NPC. (unfortunately there's no way to take from them without bartering, NPC's using armour and being able to go into the NPC's inventory were both added to FO2 though)
2. Like Rollie pointed out there's a way to do it, but there are other ways than the one I think he's thinking of too, you can pick a perk that gives you two extra AP's to spend at own will too. (if you don't want to get the other one, which I won't give a spoiler about either :))

Have you tried removing the ddraw.dll? (I'd guess that's the problem you're referring to)
If you after removing it get a problem with the screen going black, get this patch and set graphics mode to 4 in the ddraw.ini that comes with the patch:
http://timeslip.chorrol.com/sfall.html
That fixed the sluggishness and the blackness for me at least, granted it does corrupt the movies, but I'd rather have that than the blackness or sluggishness.