Depends greatly on what you're writing about.

Define 'good'.

Define 'clunky'...

...as it pertains to combat in the game Fallout.

If you like turnbased combat, freedom of choice how to build up your char and a "endzeit"-scenario but don't need highend look&effects Fallout 2 will make you happy.

Fallout 1 is still solid but "weaker" then Fallout 2, still has some nasty bugs, miss some options that round up Fallout 2 and SPECIAL....

Still my advice would be...start with 1, for the story, if you hate it..you wan't love 2 anyway ;)

Aged? Hell no... I would say "matured".. ;-)

Since they aren't too old (like Wasteland is, for example), I don't think you should have any problems enjoying them, especially if you're over 25 years old.

If you find the graphics hard on your eyes, you can try the high resolution patch! You'll find it in the link below:


http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?181743-Hi-Res-Patches-for-Fallout1-amp-2-amp-the-BIS-Mapper

Cheers!

It's kind of like asking whether or not Shakespeare has aged well.

Well...

The graphics certainly take a bit of mental adjustment to get used to, but it's not half bad once you do.
The first area you get tossed into, some brown caves, is particularly off putting. It gets better.

Combat. Lots of modern games, like jagged alliance, have all sorts of "taking cover" mechanisms.
Not fallout. You have distance and you can't shoot through corners, but it's all very basic and rudimentary.
The combat is varied though, facing all kinds of mutants and bandits, both armored and unarmored.

But, apart from the very few, you don't play fallouts for the combat or for the graphics. Not anymore anyway.

You play them for the story and for the roleplaying elements.
More than in (almost?) any game ever, you can accomplish stuff in many ways.
Fight, talk, sneak, be a hero, be a smartass. And the story, is awesome.

Fallout 1 and 2 don't age, they're Timeless Classics.

Clunky and the inventory handling will drive you crazy. Nevertheless it's still an all-time classic. As a gamer it's a good experience to have it played. Therefore I'd suggest playing Fallout 1 and patch it with the latest community patch to get the most out of the game (the original version contains a bunch of bugs).

heh! Fallout has his own interruptions for the keyboards, that is aged.
It's the classical games for PC for one reason, once you got the best armor evertyhing will be a piece of cake, before all the strongers monster will kill you.

the history are very good and the fights are entretairned, though turn based isn't my style.

But true, Fallout 2 is more "polished" than Fallout 1, but if the first one didn't like you, neither the second will.

My recommendation is to just start playing the first game and find out. The second game is better overall, but the Temple of Trials at the start of the game sucks, and may sour you on the game before the fun starts.

Aged is a very subjective term because obviously, software doesn't age. The disc it's on does and rots, but this isn't on a disc anymore. The players and things around the software age. What you're asking is if you will like it. And we sure can't say if you will or not. You're just going to have to play it yourself. Chances are, if you don't like it now you wouldn't like it then either.

I will say however on the topic, that FO 1/2/Tactics is a completely different animal than NV. There is a high chance that if you didn't like that, you'll like the classic titles. Apparently Fixt is the community patch nowadays, so get the pure version of that with bugfixes only.

Another thing to note for anyone who hasn't ever played real Fallout before: both 1 and 2 should probably not be played at very high resolutions. They simply weren't intended for that.

Nowadays with all the hi-res patches and whatnot you certainly can play them at 1920x1200, or whatever you want, but doing so radically changes the way the games feel. My advice is to stick to 800x600 or 1024x768. Otherwise you lose a significant part of the atmospheric intimacy because you're zoomed out too far. Lots of little details will escape your notice.

not liking NV is actually an important factor. NV was, mostly, 1 and 2 in first person.

Actually, Fallout: New Vegas can be played in 3rd person perspective just like its predecessors.

I wouldn't compare the classic Fallout titles to modern games as they are very different experiences. I also want to point out than you said "A very important question, is the combat good or clunky?" Thing is, Fallout 1 and 2 are NOT centered around combat like FO3 is. If you are worried more about the combat than anything else, chances are, you're playing the wrong game. FO1 and 2 focuses on character interaction and exploration, not wandering the wastes finding baddies to kick the shit out of. The combat isn't the most satisfying and it can be annoying when there are large numbers of NPCs waiting to take their turn. IMO, the game more than makes up for this flaw with the atmosphere. Not sure if atmosphere is important to you in games, but it is for me.

TLDR, if you like games that make you feel like part of the game world, give these two games a go. If you're looking at these titles cos you want to beat stuff up in a crapsack world, look elsewhere.

This is what a "modern" gamer might say about Fallout 1 and 2:

ZOMG!!! This game sucks, the graphics suck and looks like a 5 year old made them and it's 2D and the combat is slow and turn based like OMFG, this is 2015 now, turn based is so out dated. I play games to kill stuff not read, all this text makes my eyes bleed and there's nothing that tells you where to go to,except for that stupid pipboy thing that I have to read, reading sucks, I want a flashy blippy thing on the radar telling me where to go. Without a radar, knowing where to go is all confusing cos many places on the world map open up and you have to pay attention to dialog to know where to go and I don't want to to do that. They don't make games like this anymore because they're slow and ugly and hard and sucky, thank god gaming has improved since then.

I hope the above isn't you and that you will be able to appreciate these games for what they are. Regardless of what I (or anyone else) says though, you will only know if you like it if you try it out for yourself.