Posted July 21, 2009
I only learned of this game recently (with Fallout 3 coming out, I was curious about what the rest of the series looked like). The only time I heard about Fallout before was in a review in a French magazine (which applauded the freedom of the game, but gave it an average score due to the amount of bugs).
But I can tell you it's a great game, as it's fanbase can tell.
Story (9/10)
The game's story is, at first, kinda uninteresting. You're simply a person living in an underground shelter called Vault 13 who has been assigned to find a water controller chip (as yours has given up the ghost). This eventually leads to yet another quest to save the world. But as you explore the world, you realize how rich the Fallout universe is. Each town you visit has a story of it's own. And depending of how you play, the story can change radically. You could be either a savior who save humanity at the nick of time, or you could be a real sonuvabitch who watches every city get destroy before proceeding to kick these so-called villains' ass to remind them who's the real bad guy (I won't go into details because of spoilers). The dialog is well written and quite witty.
Graphics (7/10)
Let's admit it. Except for the FMVs videos (and even they aren't very impressive), Fallout's graphics are not that good. The game is sprite based and unfortunately, there's only an handful of sprites for the NPCs, which means an awful lot of repetition (the tough gang-leader will look the same as a short merchant, for example). Lucky for us that the game tells us who's who once you click on them. The backgrounds, on the other hand are really well done and each town has a unique look (just look at Junktown and Shady Sands), but the objects that your character can interact (bookcase, bed, fridge) are, like the sprites, constantly repeated. A little more of variety in sprites wouldn't hurt the game (don't know if they fixed it in Fallout 2, haven't played it yet).
Sound (7/10)
I couldn't give a high score for the sound, mainly for the lack of sound effects. The only sounds you'll hear are gunshots, melee hits, gun beings reloaded and some beeps. The developers tried to compensate by putting some ambient music (composed by Mark Morgan). These tunes don't seem to follow any specific melody and are mainly composed of sound effects, which works very well in the context of the game. The voice acting in this game is sparse, but very well done. A few characters will actually speak their dialog and they're voiced by professional voice actors such as Richard Dean Anderson (McGyver in a video game), Jim Cummings (although he doesn't screams "Go for the eyes, Boo!". He's mainly playing villains in this one), Keith David (yes, the Arbiter from Halo), Frank Welker and more. In short, the lack of sound is compensated by the music and the voice acting.
Gameplay (8/10)
Fallout's gameplay is excellent. The game used a stat-based system called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck). Unlike most RPGs (especially on consoles), level-grinding have no purpose (except perhaps at the end) as the only thing that changes when you level up is that you receive an amount of skill points (and sometimes a perk) and you have to chose where you put them (you can chose to put them in combat skills, you can chose improve lockpicking skills, you can chose you enhance your diplomatic talents, the choice is yours). Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats won't change during the game (except on very rare occasion), so character creation is more important than you may think (your character will stay that way for perhaps the whole game. As I said before, the game's main selling point is it's freedom of action. And that also counts in how you want to build your character. There's also a way to beat this game without even firing a single shot (if your Charisma is high and you have good speech skills). Unfortunately, the game is quite buggy, so it'll take a lot of patience to get through.
Final note (8/10)
Fallout is an excellent RPG, but it may not appeal to everyone. This is the sort of game in which you NEED to read the manual in it's entirely if you want to play (an in-game tutorial would've been nice). But if you're patient enough to get into this game and don't mind the bugs too much, you're in for an experience you'll probably won't forget.
But I can tell you it's a great game, as it's fanbase can tell.
Story (9/10)
The game's story is, at first, kinda uninteresting. You're simply a person living in an underground shelter called Vault 13 who has been assigned to find a water controller chip (as yours has given up the ghost). This eventually leads to yet another quest to save the world. But as you explore the world, you realize how rich the Fallout universe is. Each town you visit has a story of it's own. And depending of how you play, the story can change radically. You could be either a savior who save humanity at the nick of time, or you could be a real sonuvabitch who watches every city get destroy before proceeding to kick these so-called villains' ass to remind them who's the real bad guy (I won't go into details because of spoilers). The dialog is well written and quite witty.
Graphics (7/10)
Let's admit it. Except for the FMVs videos (and even they aren't very impressive), Fallout's graphics are not that good. The game is sprite based and unfortunately, there's only an handful of sprites for the NPCs, which means an awful lot of repetition (the tough gang-leader will look the same as a short merchant, for example). Lucky for us that the game tells us who's who once you click on them. The backgrounds, on the other hand are really well done and each town has a unique look (just look at Junktown and Shady Sands), but the objects that your character can interact (bookcase, bed, fridge) are, like the sprites, constantly repeated. A little more of variety in sprites wouldn't hurt the game (don't know if they fixed it in Fallout 2, haven't played it yet).
Sound (7/10)
I couldn't give a high score for the sound, mainly for the lack of sound effects. The only sounds you'll hear are gunshots, melee hits, gun beings reloaded and some beeps. The developers tried to compensate by putting some ambient music (composed by Mark Morgan). These tunes don't seem to follow any specific melody and are mainly composed of sound effects, which works very well in the context of the game. The voice acting in this game is sparse, but very well done. A few characters will actually speak their dialog and they're voiced by professional voice actors such as Richard Dean Anderson (McGyver in a video game), Jim Cummings (although he doesn't screams "Go for the eyes, Boo!". He's mainly playing villains in this one), Keith David (yes, the Arbiter from Halo), Frank Welker and more. In short, the lack of sound is compensated by the music and the voice acting.
Gameplay (8/10)
Fallout's gameplay is excellent. The game used a stat-based system called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck). Unlike most RPGs (especially on consoles), level-grinding have no purpose (except perhaps at the end) as the only thing that changes when you level up is that you receive an amount of skill points (and sometimes a perk) and you have to chose where you put them (you can chose to put them in combat skills, you can chose improve lockpicking skills, you can chose you enhance your diplomatic talents, the choice is yours). Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats won't change during the game (except on very rare occasion), so character creation is more important than you may think (your character will stay that way for perhaps the whole game. As I said before, the game's main selling point is it's freedom of action. And that also counts in how you want to build your character. There's also a way to beat this game without even firing a single shot (if your Charisma is high and you have good speech skills). Unfortunately, the game is quite buggy, so it'll take a lot of patience to get through.
Final note (8/10)
Fallout is an excellent RPG, but it may not appeal to everyone. This is the sort of game in which you NEED to read the manual in it's entirely if you want to play (an in-game tutorial would've been nice). But if you're patient enough to get into this game and don't mind the bugs too much, you're in for an experience you'll probably won't forget.