Fallout 2

Taking place many years after the original Fallout, Fallout II places you in the gecko gut-stained boots of your own descendant. For your withering tribal village, you seek a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, a miraculous and fabled gizmo issued to the Vaults (surprise, surprise), intended to miraculously terraform the Earth and recreate civilization. You, who automatically earned the status of Chosen One due to your lineage, get to take a spear and the treasured Vault 13 jumpsuit, and go find it.

My dry description aside, I haven't played any RPG that had the same strange appeal and lasting quality. Fallout redefined RPGs with its post-apocalyptic gunslinging gameplay, now Fallout II takes the redefinition and makes a whole lot of fun of it.

Though it retains the ragtag, gritty backdrop of Fallout, the sequel takes itself *far* less seriously and keeps an attitude of upbeat, perky cynicism combined with silliness throughout. Movie quotes and inside jokes abound, from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Austin Powers," from Macbeth to Mike Tyson. Everywhere you go, somebody's got a snide comment that is a reference to something, somewhere. I've learned more movie lines from Fallout II than from movies themselves. It's a cross-section of American pop culture, to be sure.

The graphics have changed little from the original Fallout, but it's hard to mind, because nothing was really wrong with them in the first place. The music is unobtrusive and always appropriate, it truly evokes the wandering-the-dusty-wastelands feel the Fallout universe has always intended to have. Sound effects are roughly the same but effective as always, lots of very nice, appetite-inducing sounds of gunfire and its effects. The voice-acted characters are enjoyable as ever, and your choices for responses in dialogue are sometimes so side-splitting that you'll have just one more reason to save your game before talking to *anybody*. ("Hey! I worked hard to earn the 9 Perception and Intelligence required to reach this dialogue node! Who are you calling a moron?!")

Despite the fact that there are almost no changes in the interface, Fallout II has enough adventure, storyline, and lung-destroying humor to keep both fans of the original game and newcomers playing, and almost certainly multiple times, because there are many things you will miss on the first go-round. To fully appreciate everything Fallout II has to offer, you'll have to go through it a few times with different characters - which, by the end, will feel like a very, very good idea, because Fallout II is every bit as good as the original, with a delightful new pretension towards cynical humor to boot.

I love this Game. In answer to the UK version having no kids in it there IS a patch you can get that adds them back in and lets you finish the 2 quests, watch out though if you encounter them in town they pick your pocket.

The kids were taken out of the UK game because of the Dunblane shootings and the game makers were worried about any negative feedback they might get from a game where you can shoot anyone or anything just for kicks.

Play this game, find the secret encounters, its a riot. You could buy a pack with all 3 games in it, bargain.

Some of the little touches that make this game so great are the kitschy references to current pop culture. The opening sequence resembles a 50's bomb-shelter public service film, while all the interfaces have the old-style push buttons and heavily-riveted construction common to Korean War era military equipment.

During game play, look for some of the computers to randomly display messages such as "just what do you think you're doing, Dave?" (2001) and "you now have 30 seconds to reach minimum safe distance" (Aliens), and so forth.

If you like your combat a little grittier than in Baldur's Gate and other CRPG's, set the gore filter (the game is designed to be played by most age levels) to maximum and enjoy the carnage. Or, you may be more involved by the puzzle-solving aspects of some of the missions, such as solving a murder or repairing a nuclear reactor.

This game feeds both the hack-and-slash and intellectual needs of today's computer role-player.

Having been guided through Fallout 1 by a pair of die-hard Fallout/Videogame Fans and having bought Fallout 2, I have to say that Fallout 2 is much better. However, I must admit that I was a bit let down that the plot line of 2 leans so heavily on 1's greatness. Quite frankly, the game seemed like an update to 1.

However, the game-play in 2 is much more in-depth, there are more varieties of weapons, and many, many more funny diversions to find in the wilderness. If you are a Monty Python-Quest for The Holy Grail fan and a Star Trek Fan like me, you will love these diversions.

One thing about Fallout 1 that I didn't like is that most of the action tends to center around the Hub. In Fallout 2, action can be found in PLENTY of different cities. The player has more choice about his/her destiny and the destiny of the futuristic world.

The retro-sci-fi is as good in Fallout 2, with plenty of Gangsters, Art Deco done future, and even a few "English Ka-nigits". However, no game will EVER EVER beat Fallout 1's intro scene as far as I am concerned.

I first played this game in the summer of 2002.Until then I only played fantasy type RPG-s.I never knew what I've missed.The first time I played it I was struck by the complexity of the character creation system.I said to myself "Maybe this could be something cool , even though it's from 1998." Then I started playing.YuK!!! I said out loud. The GFX were a little....dated... to put it nicely.But I said "What the heck! I paid for it , might as well see what's it about." (I was a little intrigued by the intros too...Remember the one with the Enclave Doodz?) And so,a little later, came the first level up...I tell you,I didn't know where to allocate my skill points first.Hmm...Let's see...aha! lockpick...2 points...NO WAIT!! I won't have enough points for the Doctor skill(and I suppose I'll need that later) I have plenty of points left but I have to think about the weapons skills...Hmm...Heavy or medium? Wait a minute... you can use a Bazooka in this game? And so , intrigued by this , I continued playing. I wasn't sorry. Well...all I can tell you is that in about 48 hours I slept only 3 or 4 hours and in these 48 hours I only ate a couple of slices of bread and drank a glass of water.That's what Fallout 2 did to me.And I wasn't sorry.Despite the old graphics and the bugs that made the game a little cumbersome,everything was perfect!I didn't play Fallout , but Fallout 2 is for me the best game I ever played. Maybe some time in the future I'll get my hands on Fallout - the original game and have "Another 48 hours" , but until then , let's talk a little about the game. One thing that stroke me from the first hours of play was the "Good or Evil" system based on your reputation.I finished the game as a "Goody goody two shoes" fella and then started it and did only evil and uncool stuff. It was a tottally different experience. Should I talk about the non-linearity and the freedom of movement?If Fallout 2 would be famous for two things, then these should be those things. Voice acting is only technical but I tell you , It beats by far nowadays games. And there's always the humor. There are some quotees that will always ring in my head."Gun , meet Enemy.Enemy, meet Gun!" or "Hope you got hip waders , 'cause we're about to walk in some serious sh*t!".

Overall Fallout 2 is a game like I've never seen before and like I don'think I'll see too soon. Play it. You must if you call yourself a gamer.